Eye of the Storm: Part One - Sandstorm
by Helen1969
Summary: CE 2874. The road to hell, they say, is paved with good intentions - but how do you pinpoint the moment when a man's feet take their first step onto that road? Most commentators believe that for Captain Harlock, it was the moment he realised he'd been fighting for the privilege of others to return to Earth. But it actually began several years before that... (CGI-verse, Prequel)
1. Chapter 1

Eye of the Storm - Part One

"Sandstorm"

 _Facilis descensus Averno; Noctes atque dies patet atri janua Ditis; Sed revocare gradum, superasque evadere ad auras, Hoc opus, hic labor est_

 _Publius Vergilius Maro: Aeneid_

Prologue - Part One

 **Planet DS-555 "Dis". Earth-standard time: January 2874**

The winds never stopped. That was the worst thing about the planet. Long ago most of its mountains had been ground into dust - as one wag put it, the irony was that the dust that now swept the planet on a regular basis, whipped up by winds created high in the atmosphere by the constant bombardment of solar rays from two uncaring yellow suns, was responsible for the wear and tear in the first place. Tectonically almost inert, the thin crustal plates moved so slowly that their infrequent rubbing together hadn't got a prayer of raising up new mountains. Water was locked underground in ancient aquifers so deep you needed specialist equipment to drill for it, and in the constant heat of a binary system it didn't stand a chance once exposed on the surface. True, there were a couple of very large, deep magma chambers, but those hadn't caused any significant activity in several hundred thousand years.

Not even the most desperate settlers had been persuaded to homestead on Dis. A barren world where any topsoil had long since been scattered across its Earth-sized surface, the only settlements were those set up by the mining consortium which had surveyed the system in the early years of the diaspora, and logged the presence of a small - but very lucrative - vein of yttrium bearing ore with a higher than usual yield of dysprosium. Subsequent surveys had uncovered a wealth of rare earth minerals and unusual lanthanide isotopes.

As a result, Doppler Corp was one of - if not _the_ richest - consortiums operating in the further reaches of colonial space. A "family run" business for over eight hundred years, they had expanded and colonised an entire sector. But one reason they stayed so powerful - and on the board - was their refusal to let any opportunity for profit pass by. So a marginal world where machinery would be stripped to its inner workings in a matter of weeks by an atmosphere intent on sandblasting anything out in the open was a niggling problem, since machinery capable of operating in those conditions would reduce any profit by a considerable margin. But a problem solved by an ancient solution.

Machines were expensive. People were not. And they have the benefit of being both self-repairing, and self-reproducing.

Victor Harken stood on the gantry overlooking the cargo hangar, his hands clasped behind his back, shoulders straight, standing to attention as though on a parade ground. He could still feel the annoying tickle of his recently cut blond hair on his neck and on the tips of his delicately pointed ears, and forced himself not to give in to the urge to reach a hand up to brush it off. It was probably just his imagination anyway - any barber who'd left a mess would shortly be joining the milling mass of prisoners currently being chivvied off the ramp of the most recently arrived transport.

Most of these, he noticed with a curl of his top lip, were wearing the remnants of fleet uniforms - mostly the dark brown of enlisted ranks, but here and there he spotted the dark green of command, and the blue of engineering. And if a few of the men and women below were wearing SDF or SPG uniforms - well, that was war for you.

Doppler Corp prided itself on its neutrality, after all. Why limit your market to only one side of any conflict?

Weapons sales alone had never been so good.

'What do we have?' he asked his aide - a tall man in the neutral grey of the Masked Men, his face obscured by the metal mask - in actuality a controlling device engineered by their chief of research. Quite often useful prisoners needed a little persuasion to co-operate. The masks ensured their compliance, and rarely needed to be worn for more than a few months.

Most men broke in a matter of weeks. And if they didn't… well, the masks had another function - recording the skills and memories of the wearer for downloading into clones.

Good help was, after all, so hard to find…

'Three hundred. Mostly soldiers, but a handful of engineers. Twenty-eight women of prime breeding age, seventeen others marginal.' Through the impassive mask, the voice sounded heavily modulated and devoid of emotion.

'Have the women sent to the breeding units, gene-tested and scanned. Any meeting our criteria who are confirmed fertile are to be held pending the next shipment to Shaitan. Non-fertile females to be reserved for the brothels, the rest held for insemination.' He looked down at the mass of filthy, stinking, ragged prisoners. 'That one - the red-head. Reserve her if she proves acceptable, and have her cleaned up and sent to my quarters.' The woman in question was tall and graceful, and not even the remnants of an SDF captain's uniform could hide a shapely figure. As if aware of his gaze she looked up, and he smiled coldly, enjoying the way her vivid green eyes widened in fear as she realised his intent. But savouring the moment was brief, as one of the fleet officers hovering near the small group of women moved in front of her, breaking his line of sight.

Harken huffed under his breath. A meaningless gesture of chivalry. What did the man think he could do? Take on the entire facility with his bare hands? He was about to turn away, when something about the young officer caught his attention. The woman he'd moved to protect was tall, but the man stood easily a head taller, several inches more than the men around him, including a turbaned sikh hovering nearby cradling his left arm. Dark eyes glared up at him from under a mop of untidy brown hair, stringy and lank and hanging in rats' tails around a face of extraordinary masculine beauty. Or it would have been if not marred by a scar than ran from his jaw across his left cheek to his nose, which had been broken recently.

He also sported a black eye and a split lip.

'Number eighty-seven - who is that?'

The masked man followed the pointing finger and his eyes, barely visible inside the eye slits of the mask narrowed slightly to review the heads-up display implanted over his eyes. 'A Solar System Fleet captain - one Albrecht Klaus Maria Sebastian Franz Schenk von Stauffenberg according to the files. Captain of the _Yukikaze_. Cognomen: Harlock.'

The ship name sounded familiar. Harken took a moment, still staring into those defiant eyes, and eventually placed it. 'That's an Arcadia Industries prototype… designed by that sawed-off little midget Oyama... ' He called down his own display, and quickly flicked through the intel that had accompanied this last batch of prisoners. 'Most of these were taken at the Battle of El Alamein. The _Yukikaze…'_ he found the file he was looking for. 'Ah…' He cleared the display and swept the hangar floor, searching for one face in the crowd.

It wasn't hard to find. The files had identified several of the men as being survivors from the _Yukikaze,_ including the sikh and a burly thug in a lieutenant's uniform. Next to them, wrapped in an old brown blanket over the tattered remnants of his engineer's jacket stood a short, stocky young man wearing anachronistic thick glasses, the right lens of which was cracked like crazy paving.

'Oyama Toshiro…' he murmured.

If he'd thought the young giant with the fierce eyes had looked angry before, he'd been wrong. Those dark eyes now glared at him with a murderous fury, and he moved to stand closer to the small man, placing an arm around his shoulders and pushing him back into the crowd.

Harken stared down into the hangar, amused. _Really, what did he think that would achieve? There was nowhere they could hide_ …

More to the point, he couldn't possibly have known what Harken was looking for, could he?

Harken smiled, and turned to the masked man still standing impassively at his side. 'Get me a warp feed to Jupiter - secure channel to Director Hechi.' He allowed his grin to spread as he stared down into the massed prisoners. 'Tell him I have something he wants - very, very badly…'

It might just be his ticket off this rock.


	2. Chapter 2

Prologue - 2

 **Schloss Greifenstein, Heiligenstadt, January 2874**

' _...a devastating loss for the Allied Solar System Fleet, the battle finally ended when Fleet Admiral Sanada's flagship, the Masamune, was destroyed. Reports are coming in that although the remains of the fleet are regrouping near the El Alamein system, several ships remained to cover the fleet's retreat. At this time, no report on the status of these vessels is available from Admiralty Headquarters on Mars_ …'

'Turn it off.' Mamoru said quietly. Aurora reached up to turn off the screen without a word, and then returned to sit beside her father on the overstuffed sofa. She nibbled on her bottom lip as her father placed an arm around her shoulders, and although at almost sixteen she usually felt too old for such gestures, she snuggled closer. Her attention however was on the young woman sitting opposite, who stared down at a tablet on her lap with unseeing eyes. Two small boys - one about five years old, the other a small toddler, were cuddled up next to her rather like two kittens, the younger with his head resting on his mother's thigh. Golden hair that reached to her waist when loose was coiled into a neat plait over one shoulder. Worry and fear had given her an air that made her seem older than her years. She was however only eight years older than Aurora.

'Aunt Maya?' Aurora shot a glance at her father when the other woman didn't reply. 'They might be okay. Wouldn't we have heard by now?'

Mamoru gave his eldest daughter's shoulder a reassuring squeeze. 'They do have a tendency to slip out of situations that would be the end of most men.'

Maya looked up then. 'But how long can their luck hold out, Mamoru? I heard from Oyama-san that the Yukikaze took a beating at the Battle of Castlemaine, and she was sent straight to Tiamat without a chance for repairs.' Her hand stroked the head of her youngest, and he murmured in his sleep and stretched slightly, kneeing his brother in the small of the back as he did so. She smiled fondly down at the sleeping children and then turned her gaze to the man opposite. 'I had been hoping they'd send him home…' she whispered. Her voice broke slightly on the last word.

With a whispered apology to his daughter, Mamoru Okita stood up and walked over to her, and knelt at her feet. A tall, handsome man in his early forties, he looked a good ten years younger than his actual age. Hair the colour of wet sand had a tendency to fall over his hazel eyes with their slight epicanthic fold. 'Maya. There's no sense in worrying about what we cannot fight. Or about what we do not know.' He took one of her slim, cold hands in his, and chafed it slightly to warm it. 'I'll turn the heating up,' he said eventually. 'It's going to be a cold night.'

As he stood up she was reluctant to let go of his warm hand. 'Mamoru -'

'Have a little faith,' he told her gently. He placed a light kiss on her forehead. 'Liesl and Miranda will be back soon with the girls. Wake Richard and Stefan and we'll pile down to the kitchens for dinner. I'll get cook to put your favourites on.'

The jangling sound of the ancient bell that hung at the side of the front gates to the small castle woke both sleeping children with a start, and Maya dropped her tablet, as she startled. Mamoru picked it up for her and handed it back. 'I'm not expecting anyone in this weather - are you?' he asked.

Maya shook her head, but Aurora bounced to her feet with the energy only the young could muster. 'It might be Jan!' she said brightly. She ran out of the room before anyone could say a word. Mamoru glanced down at Maya and shrugged.

'Young love,' he sighed. 'They grow up so fast!'

She smiled at him. 'As I recall, I wasn't much older than her when I married your brother, and you and Miranda had - as Harlock repeatedly keeps telling me - been making calf-eyes at each other since you were five,' she teased. She gathered her sons to her and placed kisses on top of unruly mops of hair that they surely inherited - along with their beauty and sherry dark eyes - from their absent father. 'That'd be the young man from the Weapons Research Institute in Bayreuth?' she asked.

'Jan Kugo. Umm. He's an intern there - bit of a hot head, but around here, what's one more?' he asked. Inwardly he relaxed a little. If Rory's new boyfriend took his sister-in-law's mind off her too-often absent husband, then he could cut the idiot a bit of slack.

Although he'd have to hide the glassware and the china - the kid was like a bull in a china shop - always charging around at top speed with no damn awareness of where he was going. He'd totalled two vases and a teapot in the past week alone.

Aurora's footsteps were heading back down the corridor to the family sitting room, and idly he noticed this was at a much slower pace than they'd left, and that they had a slower, heavier echo. His heart suddenly plummeting into his stomach, he looked up to see Aurora walking slowly into the room, a flimsy in her hand with the logo of the Admiralty on it. Her boyfriend Jan - a compact young man of about eighteen with his hair still dripping from the torrential downpouring of sleet outside, stood awkwardly behind her, just outside the door unsure whether or not to follow her in or allow the family their privacy.

'Mr. Okita.' The youth bowed, a little stiffly. 'The courier was in a hurry, he handed…'

'It's for Aunt Maya,' Aurora said quietly, staring at the address on the outer as though she could read the contents through it. She held it out, but Maya just stared at it in her hand as though she was being offered a live scorpion. Mamoru reached out instead and took it from Rory's trembling fingers, amazed that his own didn't shake as he tore it open.

... _regret to inform you… ...Yukikaze… ...all hands_ … He could barely make out one word in three.

He looked over to Maya, unable to speak, unable even to move as she sank to the floor to clutch her sons tightly, neither boy fully aware of what was going on.

The flimsy and its envelope fluttered to the floor from his suddenly numb fingers, and all he could do was stand there, looking down at the young woman clutching two small boys and sobbing as though her entire world had come to an end.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 1**

 **Dis, January 2874**

Harlock pushed a protesting Tochiro in front of him, back into the relative anonymity of the crowd of fellow prisoners, only releasing him once they were surrounded by the remaining crew of the _Yukikaze_.

'If you're trying to be inconspicuous,' Kavanagh snarked, 'I think you're on a hiding to nothing…'

Harlock shot a glance back over his shoulder at the gantry, but the blond, pointy-eared official with the steel-grey eyes was gone. The only occupant was a man wearing a plain metallic mask, devoid of any features except for holes for nostrils, eyes and mouth. It covered the entire head, and looking around, he could see several others moving amongst the crowd, separating out the women and technical prisoners from the herd.

Sometimes being a head taller than everyone around him had its advantages.

'They're going after the women and engineering prisoners - maybe the medics as well,' he murmured. He spared a glance at the red haired SDF captain leaning on Kavanagh's arm. 'Captain Michaelides?' The woman looked exhausted, and she was still struggling with injuries received when their ships had clashed just over a month ago. 'That sharp-dressed martinet up there had his eye on you - be careful.'

'I can handle myself if it's necessary, Captain.' She was still a little frosty towards him, and he didn't blame her. Whilst covering the retreat of the Fleet from El Alamein the _Yukikaze_ had scuttled her ship just before the vultures had arrived to pick over the carcasses. Captivity had made them reluctant allies against their captors, albeit with a grudging admiration for the other's skills. 'Look to your own people.'

Since the remaining crew of the Yukikaze consisted of himself, Tochiro, Khalsa, Kavanagh and a handful of engineering techs, that, Harlock reflected sourly, wouldn't take long.

It took even less once the metal-masked troops had separated out his five technicians, Tochiro and Elizabeth Michaelides, over his and Kavanagh's objections (Khalsa's broken wrist rendering his own resistance a trifle ineffective).

'Stay down!' the metallic voice ordered, clubbing him to the floor for the second time.

Harlock, never one to take orders even when they were delivered politely, spat, wiped the blood off his face and grinned ferally at the impassive mask leaning over him. 'Fuck you.'

His attempt to tackle the two trying to haul away a struggling kicking Tochiro were of course doomed to failure.

Fade to black in a burst of pain as a savage blow landed on the back of his head.

* * *

'It's a good thing you have a hard head.'

Harlock opened his eyes, and wished he hadn't. The world swam in and out of focus, his head throbbed, his chest hurt, one knee was apparently on fire and he couldn't see out of his right eye.

He rubbed it, and wished he hadn't. Probing it gently it felt puffy and soft, the eyelid refusing to open.

'Leave it.' Khalsa's voice. His black beard swam into focus. 'You've now got a matching pair of shiners, sir. That last bastard clubbed you in the face when you wouldn't let go.' Hands helped him into a sitting position. 'If it's any consolation, Kav's looking a lot worse - they knocked a couple of his teeth out.'

The blurring was starting to clear, although the pounding headache seemed to be there to stay along with the nausea (was there really much point in feeling sick on an empty stomach?).

'Kav?'

'Here, captain.'

Harlock looked down and to his right. _Note to self… don't move head_ … Kavanagh lay next to him, propped up against the wall, looking like a dyspeptic, red-haired panda with a gap-toothed grin. 'Just hope you kept the dental plan up to date…'

He laughed, and immediately wished he hadn't. 'Don't worry Kav. The ladies love that just-ran-headfirst-into-brick-wall look. And you two, cut out the sirs and captains, will you? We're in the shit together this time.' He looked around, gradually making out his surroundings. A bare room, maybe twenty feet square, with wooden bunks screwed to the walls, three bunks high. Several of these were occupied by listless men wearing drab grey coveralls. Other men wearing the same plain utilitarian garments were either sitting or were slumped against the walls, disinterested and disengaged. 'What's the story? And where's Tochiro?'

'Gone,' Khalsa told him flatly. They'd taken his turban and, unbound, his black hair reached his waist. 'Along with the techs. Story is they round up anyone with useful skills and take them somewhere else. Same with the women, although they say that some of those show up later - there's apparently a facility where privileged prisoners can get their leg over, if they're so inclined. A few of the younger, prettier guys end up there as well. At least until they're used up. At which point they end up back here.'

'And here is?'

Khalsa looked uncomfortable. 'It's a labour camp. Best I can tell, we're several metres underground, on a planet where they have trouble running automated machinery. Something to do with the weather. There are maybe a hundred rooms like this one - there's shower and toilet facilities, and a dining area. No metal - they don't want us getting creative with the utensils I guess.'

Harlock looked at him sharply, his good eye narrowing. 'We're military prisoners, Khal. We're supposed to be in a military camp - why the hell are we here? Who's running this place?'

'Some entitled pixie with a peroxide pompadour,' Khalsa replied dryly. 'Seriously- the guy has pointy ears.'

'He's from Shaitan then,' Harlock replied vaguely, taking in his surroundings with growing clarity. Rough hewn rock walls. Glowstrips bolted to the walls - no wires. The light was dim, barely enough to see by. The jumpsuits - and the bedding he could see - were extruded cloth, not woven. Cameras swivelled on the ceiling in the centre of the room, with no easily discernible blind spots, and far enough away from the bunks - and high enough - that no-one could access them without sitting maybe three high on shoulders. He could make out two doorways without doors - those must be the eating and shower areas. One door - sliding on the outside of the room, that must be the exit. The floor was also solid stone, carved out of the rock.

In short, it was as though someone had watched or read every prisoner of war story from the past thousand years and made notes.

Someone had taken his boots at some point, and his bare feet were freezing. 'No socks?' he asked as he reached for the jumpsuit next to him.

'One of the older inmates said they save the little luxuries for when they take us out to work, Kavanagh replied. The new gap in his teeth had given him a slight lisp. 'Wouldn't do for us to use them to smuggle rock dust out in our attempts to tunnel out using plastic spoons and our teeth,' he added bitterly. 'They'll want your uniform, sir - I mean, Harlock. Took ours a while back.'

He didn't feel like giving his captors anything, frankly, but since the _Yukikaze_ had been boarded he'd been shunted from ship to ship for over a month, with no chance to wash. He stank of sweat and blood and a few substances he didn't want to think about; his hair was greasy and tangled, his last depilatory treatment had worn off about a week ago, and his face itched under the light growth of stubble that was struggling to make an appearance. 'Showers?' he asked, the lightweight fabric clutched in his left hand. The material rubbed against his fingers, and he glanced down at the pale line of skin which ran round the base of his ring finger, whiter even compared to the pallor of long weeks spent in space. The loss of the plain gold band was like a phantom limb - he still felt the weight, even though they'd taken it from him when he'd first been captured. He gripped the thin material more tightly, burying the offending digit from sight.

Khalsa pointed at the left hand door. 'Showers and head. Forget privacy - it's all open plan.'

'I went to an all-boys Catholic prep school in Nuremberg,' Harlock told him with a grim smile. 'I think I can cope.'

* * *

It was actually a relief to be rid of the heavy uniform and step under the lukewarm water. The shower was a cheap public model you moved from head to head through - delivering the soap along with the water in the first module, then rinsing off under the second. He had to go back through a second time as he was timed out trying to get his hair clean. The past few days he'd started to feel as though his scalp was crawling. Mercifully that didn't seem to be a problem except in his head.

Yet.

The dryers were fast and efficient, and he stepped into the jumpsuit and ran a finger over the velcro faster that ran from crotch to neck. Whoever designed this place hadn't missed a trick, he thought sourly. Making a show of adjusting the cuffs at his ankles, he checked out the drainage. Two inch pipes, drilled into the rock. A distant plink from the last of the run-off suggested a holding tank deep below. Presumably recycled.

He stood up, and ran his fingers through his hair - rapidly growing out of his usual minimalist approach to a regulation haircut, and pulled a face. At least it wasn't too tangled yet. He didn't envy Khal in a few days - grooming products seemed to be non-existent, although few of the men he'd seen sported beards. _So… they probably have some system for keeping us reasonably presentable? Harsh, but no so much as to dehumanise anyone_ …

But the lassitude he'd witnessed made him wonder - how did they prevent a rebellion? _Drugs? Guards? Occasional brutal examples?_ He stared into the camera facing him as he re-entered the dorm, wet feet slapping on the cold rock.

 _And what the hell did they want with Tochiro and the other techs_ …?

* * *

Tochiro stared glumly around the room he'd been ushered into. A single bed, with bedding piled neatly at the foot. A doorway off leading into a bathroom. One chair placed in front of a recessed console in the stone wall, and one small cupboard which on closer investigation contained clean clothes - a blue jumpsuit that when he held it up was going to require both the sleeves and legs rolling up to fit his five-foot four and change frame, and two pairs of socks. His blanket had been removed by his captors, leaving him dressed in the remains of his uniform jacket (the sweater had been discarded not long after their "rescue", since it had been scorched, torn and covered in Ensign Reynolds' blood, half the poor kid's lower intestine and most of his right lung.)

A pair of glasses also rested on top of the cupboard, a quick check revealing that against all odds, someone had replicated his prescription. He put them back on the surface and eyed them up suspiciously through his old pair - although knowing his luck it probably came across as short-sighted squinting to whoever was watching him on the other side of the swiveling ceiling mounted camera.

'You should make yourself comfortable, Oyama-kun.' The voice came from behind him, and he turned slowly, peering at the intruder through the one good lens in his own glasses. The blond man from the gantry stood in the doorway, smiling at him with a predatory good humour Tochiro knew all too well from attending far too many business meetings with his father and grandfather. Although the man didn't add "the alternatives are much more unpleasant," it didn't take much imagination to fill in the blanks.

'A comfortable prison is still a prison,' Tochiro replied amiably. He sat down on the edge of the bed with a heartfelt sigh that wasn't totally faked, and began to pull his boots off. A tactic he'd learned from Harlock: start doing something totally irrelevant and pretending that it was way more important than the twat talking to you. Guaranteed to piss off almost anyone who wasn't a candidate for sainthood, and even then only if they'd never spent time with Harlock.

That he hadn't had these boots off in over four weeks was, in Tochiro's humble opinion, just the icing on the cake, as the pointy-eared smarmball gagged in between the exposure of sock one and sock two, and looked visibly greener after sock two was exposed and sock one hit the floor with a small but gratifyingly noticeable splat. 'And where's Harlock? What have you done with him and our crew?'

'Your crew and your boyfriend are to be employed… elsewhere,' Mr Pointy told him, his attempt at fake sincerity failing in the effort of trying to breathe through the odour of eau de sweaty foot. Inwardly Tochiro sighed. If he had a credit for every time someone thought he and Phantom were a couple - let alone those who assumed they knew the dynamic… _as if the lazy bugger would ever make the effort to top_ … 'You on the other hand - you are a valuable asset. This -' he gestured at the room, 'is merely a step on the way to much greater things, should you accept our offer.'

'Uh-huh.' Tochiro stripped off his jacket and stood up. He started to unfasten his pants with his back to the door, and stripped off with casual disregard for the onlooker. If the guy wanted to stare at his pimply arse, that was his problem. 'You haven't made an offer yet, and as far as I'm concerned if it doesn't include Harlock, we've nothing to talk about.' He dropped his pants on the floor, grimaced at the state of his once blue and white boxers, and yanked those off. There was a rubbish chute over in one corner, and he stuffed them into it and then sauntered over to the bathroom.

Braving the smell, Mr Pointy followed him, at least as far as the door. 'Planning on watching?' Tochiro asked bluntly. 'Or did you have designs on me if I drop the soap? Coz for the record - I don't swing that way. I like the ladies - preferably with long legs. And great tits. And red-heads. Come to think of it, that pretty much describes my wife, and I'm quite happily married.' He stepped under the shower head and luxuriated in the heat of scented water. Basic the room might be, but someone on staff was obviously a bit of a psychologist. He started scrubbing.

'Your reputation precedes you, even this far out.' The smarmball was having to shout to be heard over the running water, and with his face to the wall, Tochiro grinned. Make 'em work for it - that was Harlock's - and his - philosophy. Harlock however would usually try to resolve the situation with either his guns or his fists whilst refusing any kind of co-operation on general principles. Compromise, to Harlock, was something other people did.

Tochiro didn't disapprove of his friend's attitude, but there were other ways to get what you wanted and it never hurt to play along for a bit. It was amazing what people would drop into a conversation when they felt they had you on the hook. 'Which reputation would that be, then? I mean, depending on who you ask and what planet we're on…' He switched over from water to dryer, and shook water off like a dog. He hated the damn things - what was wrong with an honest to goodness fluffy towel?

He'd hoped to provoke the blond adonis by forcing him to shout to make himself heard, but the bastard seemed to have read the manual, and waited patiently for Tochiro to exit the dryer, walk to the bed and put on the over-sized jumpsuit. Whilst he busied himself rolling up the cuffs on both sleeves and pants, his captor carried on speaking with an indulgent smug half-smile. _Prick_ …

'Despite your tendency to run around the galaxy slumming with your "friend" testing prototype garbage haulers to destruction-' Tochiro bristled at the slur - 'and wasting time working for that penny-ante family business, you are one of the most gifted engineers of the age. Are you really surprised that other concerns might want to avail themselves of your services?'

'I'm not in the market for a new job,' Tochiro replied blandly. 'In case you haven't noticed there's a war on, and last time I looked I was still a serving officer in the Solar System Fleet. I also happen to enjoy what I do. And honestly -' he gave the bare room a supercilious appraisal and sniffed, 'I don't think you've quite got the hang of this whole recruitment thing. The package on offer needs some work.' He picked up the new glasses, stared at them for a moment, shrugged and put them on. Mr Pointy resolved into crystal clarity, and Tochiro gave him a once-over. Tall, but not Harlock tall; well muscled under the grey faux army uniform he was wearing...

Cavalry boots and breeches… he had to bite back a snigger. You could always spot the ones working for despots with delusions.

… golden blond hair, cut fashionably, not in a military style, flicked back from his face and held in place by so much product it could probably have given a parade ground salute. Steel-grey eyes above a long, straight nose gave the guy a do-not-fuck-with-me look. He held himself like a fighter, not a suit, so he probably had the chops to go with fashionable uniform, unlike a lot who affected the look. The belt at his waist held a large blaster and an electro-whip. Black gloves covered large hands. He was capable of sitting or standing with complete stillness, nary a fidget to be seen.

 _This one's dangerous_ … all his senses screamed it. Not even the guy's weird-ass ears - narrow lobed and sweeping elegantly to a delicate point - detracted from that. In fact, they underscored the point.

'You're from Shaitan,' he said quietly. Without waiting for confirmation he continued: 'That Elitist bunch of separatists who formed Doppler Corp back in the day - some massive eugenics movement and a few tweaks to the genetic code of the colonists, if I recall rightly.' He gave the man his nastiest smile. 'Which means you're working for or with that little prick Hechi, and that, mate, means the only reply to get to any offer of work is a categoric "fuck you".' He shifted his smile to his beatific, shit-eating grin - the one that could wind up even Harlock on a good day.

Blond and pointy smiled back. 'You weren't listening, Oyama. I said people wanted to avail themselves of your services. I never said you'd get any say in the matter.'

 _Ah. Right. So that was how this was going to go, was it?_ Tochiro sat down on the bed, and folded his arms. The effect was slightly spoiled by the thick rolls of material in the way however. On a whim he crossed his right foot over his lap and began inspecting his toenails. 'So now what? Torture? Drugs? Force me to watch Hechi's presentations to the Department of Procurement?

The smile grew to shark-like proportions. Given those cold grey eyes, Tochiro thought with a shiver that the shark analogy wasn't as far off the mark as he'd have liked. 'Oh no, Oyama. You're far too valuable to damage, either physically or mentally. That great brain of yours is an incredible asset. No - I prefer to use leverage of a different kind.'

He'd walked to the door as he spoke, and now stood in the doorway, one hand on the frame. 'I wonder how willing you'll be to cooperate if it's that young, oversized captain who'll pay the price for your reluctance?' Then he was gone, the door sliding closed behind him, before Tochiro could properly frame an answer.

* * *

Victor closed the door behind him with a sigh of relief. Even for allowing for several weeks stuck on a transport ship, the man's hygiene standards were lax, to say the least.

And he was as stubborn as his counterpart, he mused as he made his way back to his own quarters, three levels up. Captain von Stauffenberg - or Harlock - whatever he called himself - was already making waves, according to the report from the monitors, and he'd been in the work group less than two hours.

Just as Hechi had predicted… He smiled. Break the young captain, he was told, and he'd have Oyama agreeing to anything. It wouldn't take much. The officer was typical of his kind - entitled, well-connected and used to getting his own way, regardless of the consequences. Openly contemptuous of any authority but his own, and had a casual disregard for his own safety. The man would do most of Victor's work for him…

By the time he reached his quarters he had a spring in his step, and the sight of a freshly showered Captain Michaelides just put the cherry on his day. She stood near the bed stark naked - and not, he suspected, seeing the way she eyed him up with an icy green-eyed stare, because she was waiting for him. The clothes he'd laid out for her were still in a pile on the antique chair next to the four-poster.

'Captain!' he greeted her warmly - not a difficult task, since the woman was rather lovely. Her red hair was too short, but that would grow out. And if covered in scabs and bruises - most of the latter at the greenish-yellow stage - well, they'd soon heal. Her file gave her age as thirty, but she was athletic and still firm breasted. Her breasts were well formed and didn't sag, her hips not overly full, but nicely rounded and with no flab. As befitted a military officer her stomach was flat and well defined. Her ribs showed a little too much, from several weeks on short rations, but again, he planned to fix that.

'Is the dress not to your liking?' he asked amiably. He ignored the glare aimed at the spot between his shoulder blades and sauntered over to the tantalus on the oak sideboard. 'Whiskey? Cognac?' I have a selection - all imported from Earth, which since the embargo is a little illegal, I know, but one can make allowances for the little luxuries, don't you think?' He poured a generous measure of cognac into a snifter and sipped at it.

'I'm an SDF officer,' she snapped. 'I've no intention of being your plaything. Treating me as anything but a prisoner of war is against the-'

He held up a finger. 'I must stop you there, Elizabeth. It is Elizabeth, yes?'

'Captain, to you,' she growled. He smiled.

'Elizabeth. You seem to be labouring under some misunderstanding about your circumstances. You and the rest of the prisoners rescued after the battle are not prisoners of war. I do not represent a government - I work for a corporation. We are therefore not signatories to any convention. We haven't signed up to give you any protection. You were taken as salvage, and that makes you property. As such, you have no rights. You continue to live only so long as you prove useful. For the men, that means either working to mine the ores on this planet, or if they have valuable skills, working for Doppler Corp in other capacities. For the women…' he took another sip. 'I'm sure you'll find my bed a lot more comfortable than the dorms, and the work is, I assure you, a lot less demanding than working cutters and hauling rubble.'

'I'll take the cutters,' she snapped. 'I'm not your toy, or your slave.'

He took a step towards her, allowing his smile to drop. She paled, but held her ground. He liked that. She had spirit, and he hated to break that too soon.

Later, maybe. Unless she bred him a child or two.

'Wrong again,' he purred. 'That's _exactly_ what you are. Do you really believe that your civilised protections are valid here? No-one is coming to find you - the missing ships on both sides have been written off as lost with no survivors - our media outlet saw to that. So sad - we sent our condolences to your governments. I don't care a damn about your _enlightened_ , enfranchised, empowered feminism. It means nothing here. You are not a military officer anymore. You are a woman, a toy, a chattel - a plaything. I can keep you fed, clothed and pampered and treat you like a princess if I choose. Equally I can subject you to the worst degradation you could ever imagine.'

He crossed over to the bedside table and opened up one of the drawers. He beckoned her over, and she took the three steps necessary to be able to see, but no more. She kept herself just out of arm's reach. For all the good it would do her.

He examined her face carefully as she looked over the objects revealed. A small case containing a syringe and several ampules of an amber liquid. An open box filled with restraints for both ankles and wrists. A sheer, silk negligee. He had to admit, she kept her reactions under superb control, although the eyes gave her away, and the way the corners of her mouth tightened.

'I see you finally begin to understand,' he said smoothly. He stepped past her and picked up the dress lying on the bed. The green silk was as soft was a whisper. He held it out to her. 'There are men on this base who would not be so amenable, Elizabeth. You would not like to be handed over to them, I can assure you. I'm attractive, intelligent and if I do say so myself, most women have no complaints about my prowess. There is no need whatsoever to make this unpleasant for yourself. I assure you, I prefer my women willing.'

'Well that explains the drugs and the handcuffs,' she snapped, ignoring the gown. She stared into his eyes. 'I'd sooner fuck a sand snake.'

He shrugged. 'That can be arranged. It could be entertaining to watch.' He placed his half-empty glass down on the cabinet, and reached into his pocket for a small device. 'But first a lesson. Did you not wonder why you've been standing here for so long and despite your training, not even made a move to attack me?'

From the look on her face, the answer was no. But then, it always was… 'I'm not stupid enough to let anyone near me in intimate situations without a few… precautions…' He thumbed a button, and she collapsed onto the floor, clutching her head and trying to bite back a scream. After a few seconds he released it. Once she'd quietened down, he helped her to sit on the bed. 'There, there. That was just a demonstration. A little implant into your brain. It's based on the masked man technology, but less invasive. Just a little insurance policy. You won't be able to escape, or attack me, but it won't otherwise interfere with your free-will. The pain… well, that's a little lesson. I hate to mark my things. Nerve induction is after all so much more effective.' He placed the dress on her lap and smiled at her as he ran a finger down her face, tracing the line of a single tear down her cheek. 'Now, why don't you put the gown on and we can dine like civilised adults?'

He stood up. 'I'll give you a few minutes to change, my dear. But don't keep the chef waiting - he's very proud of his work, and he'll be so disappointed if it spoils.

'I'll kill you if I get even half a chance,' she told him before he'd reached the door.

He didn't turn around. 'My dear, I'd be disappointed in you if you didn't at least try.'

The brandy snifter shattered against the door as it slid closed behind him.


	4. Chapter 4

**Eye of the Storm - part 1**

 **Chapter 2**

 _ **Heiligenstadt in Oberfranken, early February, 2874.**_

The rose garden was still under two feet of snow at this time of the year, but for Maya, it was still her second favourite place on the estate. She knew the position of every variety, the contents of each bed and terrace. Even bare and frosted, their only colour the few remaining hips, there was something comforting about this secluded, walled garden. In summer it was a blaze of colour and scent, a living museum of a single genus, containing everything from rambling climbers clinging to the pitted rock with needle-thorned vines, through elegant, carefully pruned standards, hybrid teas, floribundas and simple dog-roses.

She loved the heady, blousy hybrid teas, but in some strange way it was the simple, single row petals of the rugosas that drew her. Something about their rough-and-tumble refusal to conform to the formal confines of their more elaborate descendants appealed to something inside her - they would not be pruned into submission, forced to fit into whatever niche the gardener decided to put them in. They bloomed in profusion in the summer and autumn, their prickly stems winding everywhere - up walls, columns, around any surface they could, refusing to give in, and almost impossible to remove without covering yourself with a myriad of sharp pin-pricks.

They reminded her of Harlock. Wild, atavistic, beautiful, and impossible to hold without hurting yourself, equally impossible to tame. In contrast, the man walking towards her along the same path she'd left in the snow was more like one of the cultivated tea roses - still beautiful, with a strong scent, but cleaner branches almost devoid of thorns, the leaves dark and waxy, the blooms a classic tea rose in shape… but tamed, controlled, civilised… She smiled as he approached. He was a Blue Moon - pale, rare, but with a heady fragrance.

'Mamoru.' She held out her hands as he approached, and he took them into his own and bowed over them. 'We didn't expect you back until tomorrow.'

He smiled at her, and she, despite the cold place in her heart, smiled back. Really, it was always impossible not to. And it always amused her being able to almost look him in the eyes without getting a crick in her neck. 'It's a brief enough visit. I have to go off planet tomorrow, I thought I'd better stop by. Miri would never forgive me if I didn't.'

She retrieved her gloved hands. 'Nonsense. She'd forgive you anything, and you know it. Although you might be spending some time in a spare room…'

He smiled, a rare sight over the past few weeks, but then, that was true for all of them. With the late snows a shadow had fallen over Schloss Greifenstein. 'Walk with me,' he said softly. She placed her arm in the crook of his, and kept pace with his stride - not really difficult, he was considerably shorter than his brother, and she was tall. 'Miri said I'd find you here, but until spring, there isn't much to see or do - why walk all this way to look at bare shrubs and walls?'

'It suits my mood,' she replied softly. 'And it seems… fitting.'

He said nothing as they reached the far wall, and turned, both of them knowing the well-maintained gravel path hidden under the snow. 'I had a call, whilst I was in Geneva. An old friend from the Academy. He wants to talk to me.'

'About…?'

'El Alamein.'

The words fell between them like a poleaxe. She stopped and pulled her arm free so that she could turn to look at him. Like his brother, he didn't give much away unless he wanted to. Her own father said they'd both inherited that from their sire. But there was something in his hazel eyes that she hadn't seen there for almost a month now, and thought she'd never see again in her own.

Hope.

'Shiro Sanada,' he continued. 'We were in the same class, although we haven't seen much of each other for years - I dropped out of the military after graduation for marriage and a corporate life, he stayed, became career navy.'

'Admiral Sanada? The fleet admiral?'

Mamoru nodded. 'They'd shipped him back to Mars for treatment - his injuries were severe.'

'I thought the news said he wasn't expected to make it?'

'A lot of him didn't,' he replied bleakly. 'He's still in IC, but awake, and he's asked to see me.'

She had the feeling there was more. 'Mamoru…?' she prodded. 'So you're going to Mars? That shouldn't take too long…'

'Titan,' he corrected, a far-off look in his eyes.

'I thought you said…'

He shook his head. 'He contacted your father when he woke up. We pulled some strings, got him shifted to the experimental facility in Grape Valley. Fleet aren't happy, but they couldn't legally do a damn thing once he woke up and was fully coherent. The wheels of bureaucracy can turn mercifully slowly at times, thank goodness, or I doubt we'd have been able to pull it off.'

She let him lead her back towards the house, lost in thought. 'Why,' she asked, as they took the long walk up the drive, grateful for thick tread on her boots in the icy slush, 'is it so important to keep him out of Fleet hands?' She was starting to have her suspicions, but those went hand in hand with her hopes, and those she was afraid to encourage.

'He wouldn't say over a commlink. Not even our secure warp link. Said anything could be hacked or intercepted. No - I have to see him in person.'

'Why you? Why not my father? Or Oyama senior?'

They reached the massive oak gates, and he opened the smaller, person-sized side door for her and followed her through. 'He didn't say, but if I had to guess, because with most of our test pilots called up for the war, I'm the only person qualified to take a ship out to the frontier.'

Her questions were forestalled by two small boys running into first her legs with squeals of "mama" and then being swept up into Mamoru's arms as he picked each child up in turn for a hug and a kiss.

'Uncle Mamoru!' Richard hugged him tightly around the neck. 'Aunt Miri sad you were back!'

'Rick. You keep growing everytime I go away! Even for a week!' Smiling, Mamoru placed him back on the ground carefully, although in the courtyard the flagstones had been swept clear and gritted. 'And you, small fry! Where's my hug, hmmm?' He reached down for Stefan, who'd toddled over and had reached out with his arms.

'Papa!' Mamoru lifted the little boy up and held him close, with a helpless look at Maya, who sighed and shrugged sadly.

'He's seen more of you than his father,' she told him. 'You watched him be born, saw his first steps…' she reached out for her youngest son and Mamoru handed him over, after disentangling a mitten-clad grip from the fur-lined collar of his greatcoat.

'I'm sorry…'

She smiled at him. 'Don't be. I can't think of a better role-model. Just…' she hesitated. 'Take care, out there, Mamoru - I don't think any of us could bear it if we lost you too. I think you're the only one holding us together right now.' Stefan held with one arm, his arms around her neck and his cheek against hers, she took Richard's hand. 'Now then - who wants hot chocolate by the fire?'

Mamoru watched her walk away, the sight of her putting on her brave face for the boys cutting deep into his heart. He didn't turn at the sound of light footsteps behind him, but reached out without looking to place an arm around Miranda's waist and pull her close, until her head rested against his chest.

'She's too young for all of this,' Miranda whispered. 'But then, I don't think it would be any easier if our roles were reversed.' She pulled away just far enough to tilt her head to look up at him. 'She's right - we couldn't bear to lose you. _I_ couldn't bear to lose you…'

He kissed his wife of twenty years on top of her head and pulled her closer. 'Not happening, Miri. I'm too damn stubborn - plus I'm the careful one, remember?'

'When do you leave?' she asked, sidestepping the question.

'Tomorrow. We've got a shuttle standing by to take some supplies and personnel out to Titan - they've dropped a tech to make room for me.'

She nodded. 'You didn't tell her all of it, did you?'

He shook his head slowly. 'I didn't want to get her hopes up. It's tenuous at best - could just have been picked up by salvage ships picking over the area after the battle… Marcus… Marius.. Manfred - dammit, I still get her darned brothers mixed up. Which one's the eldest?'

'Manfred,' Miranda added helpfully, giving him a dig in the ribs. 'The one based out of Herise.'

'Justin could have been a bit more imaginative with the opening syllables,' he grumbled fondly. ' _Manfred_ \- says the items show no signs of vacuum damage or explosive residues from the drives. Which means they were taken after the battle, in atmosphere.'

He could still see the video footage Maya's eldest brother had sent. Two cosmo dragoons bearing Tochiro's patent engraved on them. One overly long gravity sabre. Found during a raid on an illegal weapons smuggling sting two weeks ago. Along with a massive cache of armaments showing signs that they'd been stripped off battleship wreckage.

' _From both sides,' Manfred had said quietly. He was a masculine copy of his sister - tall, slim, golden haired, blue eyed and like her, clearly took after their deceased mother with his easy smile and good looks. 'It's not proof of life, but we've been interrogating the smugglers behind this - they get their stock from some well-funded outfit who plunder this sector after any engagement - not afraid to go in whilst the area's hot, which means they're long gone before any search and rescue team gets the go-ahead - or before my team can try and catch them in the act. They'll sell to anyone - they're not fussy. Military, gangs, pirates... '_

 _Mamoru hadn't needed to say much in reply. The realities of the struggle on the frontier meant that anyone with the stomach for the trade could - and did - make a fortune out of the misery that was the Homecoming Movement. 'Keep digging,' he'd asked. 'I'll ask around at my end. El Alamein was a massive kick in the teeth for the fleet. They fled with their tails between their legs and no-one's happy about it. The news coverage has slowed to a trickle - the Admiralty and the Council are keen to keep a lid on it.'_

' _Figures,' Manfred had snorted. 'Something stinks about that withdrawal. Sanada's not a man to turn and run and leave men behind. Those ships were almost defenceless from what I hear - the Yukikaze was probably the best armed, the rest were escort frigates and a couple of fighter carriers that had lost most of their planes in the first sally. If even one capital class vessel remained operational on the other side, they were sitting ducks…'_

'If they took the time to take the survivors off the wrecks long enough to take their weapons, that's hopeful, isn't it?' Miranda asked him, breaking into his reverie. 'I mean - why take the trouble of…' she bit her bottom lip and went quiet 'I suppose though they could have just stripped the bodies…'

He hugged her closer. 'Normally, I'd agree. But there's one thing that makes me hopeful they were alive when the weapons were taken off them…'

 _Manfred had held up one of the gunbelts - the longer of the two, made for a wider waist than Harlock's. 'He's a quick thinker, young Oyama. There's a small warp receiver built into the buckles - and the guns' butts have tiny hidden compartments in them with a microinjector - both used.'_

 _The receiver was flashing green. Faint, but steady._

* * *

 _ **Grape Valley, Titan**_

The shuttle's path down from orbit took it past the vast scaffold that was the dry dock for the latest insanity Tochiro and his brother had cooked up between them. Mamoru watched from the passenger seat as his pilot manoeuvred them past the structure, where four massive ships - each over a kilometre long - was being constructed. The "keels" had been laid down over a year ago, and by now the superstructure for each ship was mostly complete. What they'd look like when complete, Mamoru only knew from brief sightings of the blueprints - sleek, streamlined monstrosities with narrow bows sweeping back to the twin engine pods that were only just being laid down. Dock four claimed most of his attention, as it seemed to be the furthest along in terms of construction - he could see a massive gravity-crane lifting what looked like an enormous cathedral organ into place where, if he remembered the plans correctly, the bridge would one day be.

They were chained in their docks like the skeletons of some ancient beast. Occasionally flickers of blue lightning would light up the dark metallic bones. Despite the temperature controlled cabin, he shivered.

'Gets me every time too,' his pilot grinned. 'Weirdest damn things. Gives me the creeps ferrying teams to and from them on the work rotation - and they say the _Scaffold_ is haunted…'

'It's just tech,' Mamoru replied, hoping he was convincing himself as much as his pilot. 'Weird, yes, alien as all hell, but it's still science. Just older and more advanced than ours…'

The pilot - George? Jorge? Snorted. 'Yeah. Right. I've been up there when I've been waiting for my passengers, and let me tell you, it's downright spooky. Lights don't work right, always going out when you least expect it. They had to increase the rotas because the crews can't take more than a few days at a time. And those blue guys? You seen them? Those big glowing eyes staring right through you?' He shivered theatrically. 'If the money wasn't so damned good…'

'We _pay_ you to put up with the weird shit?' Mamoru deadpanned. It got him a nervous laugh. He stared at the last of the docks as they cruised past. In the still bare structure he could make out Tochiro's trademark sweeping lines - he'd grown a little more whimsical in recent years, and these ships were a lot less chunky and more elegant than the hapless _Yukikaze_.

Anchored next to the _Scaffold_ was another prototype, and Mamoru smiled at the sight. A fraction of the size and draught of the beasts keeping her company, the upswept horns of the _Deathshadow's_ prow were unmistakable. Below those, her prow was pointed and elongated, almost like an ancient trimarine's ram, Mamoru had always thought. Her top line was classic Tochiro whimsey - modelled after an ancient maritime battleship deck, complete with faux-wooden decking and a double bank of three particle cannon. She was barely a hundred metres long, but she packed a punch - or had, before she'd been so badly damaged two years ago, they'd had to beach her and the boys had taken the _Yukikaze_ II out instead - a ship nowhere near as fast or well armed.

Looking at her now as they flew past, he could see no damage on her hull, although a couple of suited techs were drifting over her, tethers coiling behind them.

He laughed when he saw what they were doing: painting a skull and crossbones onto her side.

'The old man thought it might help,' _Giorgio_ said when he asked. 'He said they needed a ship to come back to, so he moved up her final repairs - she's not had her space trials yet after her refit, but she's almost good to go.' He was a long faced, sallow skinned gloomy looking chap with long, lank black hair, but he had warmed up and chatted once the ice had been broken by Mamoru taking the co-pilot seat instead of lounging in the passenger compartment in comfort. 'Wouldn't mind taking her out myself - she's a speedy little beauty by all accounts. I hear they named the big scary project back there after her…'

Mamoru smiled. 'The name's been handed down throughout the centuries in my family. One of several we've always used.'

The little craft then hit the upper atmosphere, and the ride after that got a little bumpy, forestalling any further musings. Instead he made himself - with Giorgio's permission, although as a board member he technically could do what he damned well pleased - useful by taking over nav and comms for the duration of their flight to the surface of the frozen surface.

* * *

He was met in the hangar - several hundred metres below the surface ice, and barely tolerable temperature-wise to a recently arrived Earther - not by old man Oyama, or one of his assistants, but by an ethereal being who reminded him always of an elf or fairy out of legend. If fairies had been blue, with large, cat-like eyes set in narrow faces, with long backswept skulls and tiny chins, attenuated limbs and hair that was so fine that it drifted like the silky gauze they wore over what looked like tight-fitting skinsuits, even in the faint drafts of the station.

'I wasn't expecting to be met by…'

'You are expected in the infirmary,' a musical voice told him in a curt tone that reminded him of a few very snotty butlers of his acquaintance. The fine, silvery hair was cut to just below the creature's shoulders, and the lack of bumps under the form-fitting suit with its floating over-tunic suggested, despite the high, fluting tenor, that this was probably one of the males… _Yngwie? Njordr_? 'You will follow me.'

The peremptory tone managed to get right up his nose with those four words. Given the stress of the past few weeks his temper was running close to his brother's levels of don't-fuck-with-me, and the temptation to punch the supercilious arse into the middle of next week was almost overwhelming, especially when it looked him over from head to toe, seemingly found him wanting, and turned on a high heel to lead him out of the hangar.

Almost. He wasn't Harlock, after all. But neither was he the pushover so many seemed to think him by comparison.

'You know what? I know the way. Don't fret about showing me, sweetie. I'd hate for you to break a nail - or perish the thought, into a sweat.' He swept past the alien with the natural arrogance he'd worked a lifetime burying in an effort to distance himself from a heritage that often weighed like an anchor around his neck, careful to only lightly bump into the smug little creep as he strode past.

The prissy spluttering behind him really did remind him of a couple of major-domos he'd known over the years. And a concierge or two… He shouldn't have let the little prick get to him, but his few meetings with the Nibelung over the past five years hadn't really endeared him to any of them - or they to him.

Except one… and he cursed under his breath as she sashayed towards him with a breathtaking grace that was as natural to her as breathing, her knee length light green hair fluttering like ripples on the ocean on a calm day… 'Verdani.' He at least gave this one the respect due her rank, with a short inclination of his head. The best most of them could manage was indifferent, but this one was, for the aliens, downright friendly.

A bit too much on occasions, he remembered with a mortified flush he hoped wasn't too noticeable in the dim lights.

'Mamoru-san. There would have been more here to welcome you, but there were some technical difficulties relating to the transfer of the dark matter engine to Deathshadow Four that Oyama-san and Mimay needed to address.'

The prissy Nibelung from the hangar swanned past with a muttered, bell-like comment in his own language that was met with a decidedly frosty reply from the lovely female that turned the tips of his pointed ears a darker blue. He bowed to her and scuttled past as though his arse was on fire. Inwardly, Mamoru smiled, then caught her staring at him with her unblinking wide eyes - _orbs_ was a cliche, he knew, but frankly, that was exactly the right word for the Nibelungs' wide, round eyes. 'Something on my nose?' he asked without thinking.

She smiled at him and tilted her head on one side, just like a cat. Hopefully he wasn't a mouse… 'You _are_ his brother. I can see it in your eyes, the way you hold yourself.' she reached out a hand - long fingered, pale, and elegantly knuckle-less, he noticed. He braced himself as she reached out to run those fingers over his cheek. The Nibelung, they'd discovered very early on, weren't big on personal space. 'However you are more… centred. At peace with yourself. You do not look to the horizon as he does.' She let her hand drop to her side. 'You have already found what you need for your fulfillment, you have no need to search for it elsewhere.'

'Is that such a bad thing?' he asked, a little stung, not sure from her dulcet tone whether it was a compliment or not. It put him far too much in mind of his mother's constant criticism that he lacked ambition.

'He speaks of you often.' He didn't need to ask who she meant. 'He says you were well named. A protector.'

He found himself wondering what the hell they called his brother.

'Too much like one of us,' she said, as though she'd heard him. Her tone was dry and sardonic. 'You aren't that hard to read. Humans, that is. Your brother is… impulsive, always staring far ahead of where his feet are.' She smiled, and despite her obviously unhuman features, he felt the sorrow in the expression like a body blow. 'But his determination and willingness to lay his life on the line for what he holds dear… or right… those are admirable.' She paused, and her third eyelid flickered briefly over her eyes. 'In small doses.'

Her tiny mouth was quirked into a coquettish smile, and he smiled back with a shake of his head. _So they have a sense of humour? Who knew_ … 'And here was me thinking your people were all over him because he was some big damn hero.'

'Heroes,' she replied archly, 'are not always easy to live with.' She gestured at the empty corridor. 'Please - allow me to escort you.'

He bowed his head again, accepting the gesture for what it was, but allowing the fiction to stand. They'd been given this area of the base as their own, although technically humans were not banned from it, but there were niceties involved, he supposed.

It occurred to him that if Shiro was in this section… he cleared his throat as they walked and asked the obvious question.

'Our people have some techniques we offered to share to help your friend,' Verdani replied. 'His injuries were extensive, but his condition is stable. Yngwie is our most gifted healer, and has considerable knowledge of the human body.'

 _I'll just bet…_ There had been questions raised about the interaction humanity might have had with this ancient race over the years - the coincidence of their names, language and certain stories and myths would drive anthropologists apoplectic if they were made aware of their existence. So far this was confined to certain sections of the Council and the military - though for how long…

'Here.' A door irised open to his left. 'Please - see your friend. I'll be back shortly to show you to your quarters.' She left him then, trip-trapping down the corridor with a sway to her hips that would have been the envy of many a catwalk wannabe. Shaking his head partly to clear it and partly in bemusement, he entered the infirmary and the door _ssshd_ shut behind him.

* * *

The Nibelung bending over the infirmary bed was tall, when he straightened. Almost as tall as Harlock, and almost as gracefully lovely as Verdani. _Yngwie, of course… the one his brother never stopped bloody complaining about because the (man?) was all over him like a rash at every opportunity, The Nibelung, apparently, having not only no sense of personal space, but also no hang ups about gender and sex._

 _Nor any concept of sexual harassment, to Tochiro's continual amusement at his friend's discomfort._ The one they called Mimay had attached herself to Harlock like a limpet as well, he recalled… _Way to go, baby bro_ … _if you actually cared you'd be a bloody menace_ …

'Mamoru… Okita, is it not?' The Nibelung was speaking and Mamoru dragged his attention back to the present. There were human med-techs in the room, but they seemed to be wandering around with that dazed look his household full of children got when allowed into the best pastry shop in Heiligenstadt.

'It is. My apologies if my visit interferes with the Admirals' treatment, but I was told…'

'Okita! Good grief man, you still apologise your way out of everything don't you? If I could just find an officer who falls half-way in personality between you and that rebellious hellion you call a brother, I'd have the best damned captain in the fleet!'

Mamoru laughed. 'Shiro. As ever you seem to be forgetting I scored consistently above you in every class for five years. You haven't lost your sense of humour.' He nodded to the Nibelung and walked over to the bed.

'Makes up I guess for losing almost everything else.'

Mamoru looked down at his old friend. The sheet covering his body fell flat at the point where his knees would be, and whilst his left arm rested on top of the covers with tubes sprouting out of it, the other was missing just below the elbow, the stump covered by a gel-filled cap linked to an odd machine next to the bed. 'Shiro…'

Shiro Sanada was the same age as Mamoru, but looked ten years older. His black hair was silvering slightly and growing out of its regulation buzz, sticking up at odd angles as though it hadn't been combed all day. Lines around his mouth and eyes and the furrows of his brow told their own story, and his slightly dilated pupils the rest. Whatever they had him on was pretty strong. 'No-one told me the full extent of your injuries,' he murmured, as he sat down on the chair one of the techs provided without prompting. He thanked the young woman, who promptly blushed and scuttled away.

'I'll live, or so they tell me. Stop looking at me like that, I'm not dead yet. They've got me scheduled for a procedure later today - plan on putting me under for a while, which is why I had to see you.'

'About Phantom and Tochiro?' It was hard to keep the hope out of his voice.

'Don't get your hopes up, Mamoru - it was bad out there. My second took command when the bridge was hit - dragged me out, and I suppose I should be grateful.'

His voice suggested otherwise, but Mamoru let it slide. 'I heard the fleet retreated after that…'

'I heard. They're pinning the retreat on me - which is rich, given that I was bleeding out unconscious for most of it. That was my XO. I'd never leave… have left...' He coughed, weakly, and one of the techs moved in to check on him, only to be waved off. 'We were bloody well set up - they were waiting for us as we came out of IN-SKIP. If not for Harlock and Oyama, we'd have been gutted like fish. They weren't even supposed to be in our battle group - but they reached us just after we'd come out of IN space. Intercepted a coded communication to the rebel fleet giving away the destinations of three battle groups. Last time I saw the _Yukikaze_ she was between us and an enemy dreadnought - if they hadn't deflected that last shot…' he fell silent.

Mamoru turned over the story. _More pieces to the damned puzzle and he still didn't know what the picture was_. 'What I don't get is how this helps me - the reports have all said that the ships who were ordered to remain were all wiped out. My brother, they tell me, is dead...'

'Do you really think those two would go down that easily? The kid's a pain in the bloody arse, but he fights like a demon when his back's to the wall.' Sanada shook his head. 'The _Yukikaze_ might well hold the key to the origin of those messages, Mamoru. No-one else knows about that call between us before all hell broke loose. Even if they didn't make it, if anything from the _Yukikaze's_ databanks is recoverable…'

Mamoru took in a deep breath. Let it out again heavily. 'There's a traitor in either the Admiralty or the Council. Whoever that is - if they get wind that there's something out there that will expose them…'

'If your brother and Oyama were taken prisoner, they're in danger. Sooner or later the techs will get round to the flight recordings of my ship - and when they do, that little talk will be out in the open.' Sanada's remaining hand gripped Mamoru's with surprising strength. 'Oyama senior tells me that you've had word that their transponders were possibly activated after the battle. I know you - you wouldn't have come all this way if you didn't believe they were alive. And you'd never let yourself believe it unless you'd seen them dead with your own eyes. You need to get to that sector and find them - or the data banks of the _Yukikaze_ if anything is left of her. Before someone else does.'

'I'm not fleet,' Mamoru protested, knowing full well what was about to be suggested. 'I resigned my commission nearly twenty years ago. I have no ship, no crew, no experience…'

'Take the _Deathshadow_ ,' Sanada told him. 'It takes a crew of twenty. You can make that up from your own people here on Titan easily. Even better, the fewer Fleet personnel involved, the better.'

'Into a war zone. In a ship that's only just been repaired after being mothballed for over eighteen months after a _severe_ mauling, that hasn't been space-tested yet. With no backup, no mandate, no clue where I'm going. Best case scenario if I'm caught, I'll be arrested and executed for bloody piracy!'

'Well it wouldn't be the first time in your family, now would it?' Sanada replied sarcastically, sinking back onto his pillows, his face drained of colour. ' _Deathshadow's_ space trials would be the perfect cover - no-one will look twice at you taking her out - you own the damn thing after all.'

One of the techs came over. 'Okita-san - he needs to rest, please…'

Mamoru looked down at his old friend, and at the hand which although weak, reached out to grip his own again. 'Promise me,' Sanada whispered hoarsely.

Mamoru met his pain filled eyes, glaring at him with an desperate, implacable will.

'I promise,' he replied quietly.

Sanada's hand released his and the admiral sighed deeply and closed his eyes.


	5. Chapter 5

**Titan - United Solar Fleet destroyer "Deathshadow"**

The _Deathshadow_ wasn't a large ship - an old _Admiral_ class vessel, she'd been one of several junkers rescued from the scrap heap and sent out to the Titan docks for Tochiro to work his magic on. She'd actually been designed by his father, and Mamoru could remember getting a tour of her class-namer when he'd been a cadet, his own father walking alongside him pointing out the various features that made her special.

Almost thirty years ago… he smiled ruefully as he ran a hand over the small control desk in the captain's cramped quarters. Verdani had read him all too well. He'd taken the offer of the Academy place to please his father, not himself, but to be fair, the Fleet _had_ put him through a top class education. It's just his talents - and interests - didn't lie in the vast frontiers of space, or in the thrill of battle. He'd served out his mandatory time in logistics - brilliantly, his commanding officers had said.

Recognising this, his father had given him free rein with the family finances when he mustered out, and neither of them had ever regretted it.

But he had loved the sleek little ships with their odd, beetle-like horns. Her class was built for speed and stealth. The fleet hadn't had much use for them, preferring, as always, lumbering behemoths with bigger weapons; compensation for aging admirals struggling to keep up with their trophy wives. Harlock had used this one for a time, but she lacked the firepower to hold his interest for long, and to be fair, she was easily out-gunned even by the _Yukikaze_.

She could however out-manoeuvre any ship in the fleet with the right captain at the helm. She was fast, and smart - her battle computers programmed with the combined knowledge of the greatest military campaigns of land, sea, air and space. And if her particle cannon were no longer cutting edge - well, she was fast enough and nippy enough to get in close, slice into her prey and be darting away out of range before they could re-calibrate their own weapons.

Tochiro hadn't named his new class after her on a whim: he'd taken the best elements of her design to incorporate into his new, alien prototypes. And taking a lesson from her weaknesses, he'd planned to considerably boost her armaments.

He walked the few steps over to the viewing window, which overlooked the giant dry dock. In truth, being tethered so closely to the skeletal leviathans under construction triggered a visceral response he was hard pressed to explain. But the flickers of blue lightning around the slowly emerging superstructures filled him with a sense of foreboding he just couldn't shake. The darkness seemed to pool around them - which was ridiculous, he knew - how the hell could anything be darker than space? But this darkness was older. Blacker. Primeval.

If he stared into it for long enough, he had the terrible sense that something was staring back at him.

With a shiver he hit the control to lower the blast shield, cutting off the view, but not that sense of something very old, very cold, and very deadly squatting not a hundred yards away across the gantry of the scaffold.

To take his mind off it, he turned his attention to his new quarters. Apart from the small but fully functioning captain's desk - slaved to its twin on the bridge - the room held a comfortable acceleration couch, a single bed with a small cabinet next to it, and a small wardrobe. A narrow door led into the head and shower (rank having, as ever, its privileges…)

His bags were on the bed, still zipped. Since he was still wearing a suit from his meeting earlier, and a look at the chronometer on the wall told him he only had half an hour to spare before he was due to meet his hastily assembled team on the bridge, he reached for the larger of the holdalls, and pulled out his old flightsuit.

It was black - not his favourite colour, he left that for moody bastards like his brother. Yellow piping on the seams, but the material and finish were military grade. He fingered the fabric with a nostalgic smile. _Damn… it had been a long time_ … Before Elena had been born, if he remembered correctly. He'd largely given up even the few flights he used to make after that, leaving most of the out-system trips either to the local offices, or taking commercial flights.

But he was a Harlock, after all, as his brother constantly tried to remind him. And blood will tell. Truthfully, he did enjoy flying, both in atmosphere and in space.

It just wasn't his entire damn life, the way it seemed to be Harlock's...

A flash of a lighter colour caught his attention as he turned it over, and he let it unfold. The back was plain enough. The front however… he almost laughed out loud. It was that, or stick his head in his hands and sigh.

There was a large white skull and crossbones emblazoned over the chest.

A small note fell out of the breast pocket as he turned it over in his hands, and he laid down the flightsuit, and picked it up from the floor.

' _Had to make a few alterations_ ,' read the copperplate scrawl of his brother's atrocious handwriting. ' _But if you can still squeeze your padded corporate behind into this, at least you'll look the part_!'

It was dated six months ago, the last time his brother and Tochiro had been home. He smiled and placed the note carefully on the bedside cabinet. Just the sort of prank those two would pull - he might never have pulled the damn thing out of storage again for all they knew. He reached into the bag for the spare, making a mental note to get someone to remove the emblem.

A roll of paper about a foot long greeted his exploring fingers, and he drew it out. Creamy parchment, tightly rolled and tied with a black ribbon. He sighed and shook his head even as he untied the ribbon and unrolled it, having a pretty good idea of his brother's offbeat sense of humour. He scanned it quickly, with a growing smile.

 _ **W** hereas, by His Majesty's Commission under the Great Seal of Great Britain bearing Date the 25th Day of January in the year of Our Lord 2873 [….] the Lords Commissioners for executing the Office of Lord High Admiral are required and authorized to issue forth and grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal to any of His Majesty's Subjects or others, whom we shall deem fitly qualified in that Behalf for apprehending, seizing, and taking the Ships, Vessels and Goods [….] These are, therefore, to will and require you to cause a Letter of Marque and Reprisals to be issued out of the High Court of Admiralty unto **Alexander Dietrich Sebastian Schenk von Stauffenberg** , Commander of the [… ] Said Letters of Marque and Reprisal to continue in force until further orders, for which this shall be your Warrant._

 _Given under my Hand, …._

 _By His Excellency's Command._

The name and details of the vessel had been left blank _._ With a grin he fished around in his bag for a pen, and quickly filled in the details of the _Deathshadow_ with a flourish. Sadly there wasn't enough room to change the damned name back to the one his mother had given him over the ridiculous word salad his father had tried to insist on. _Ah well… didn't pirates travel under noms de guerre_? He reached for the black suit and headed for the shower, with a much lighter step than he'd displayed in weeks.

* * *

Mamoru had to be quick on his feet to dodge the two techs scurrying from the bridge, arms full of trailing wires and a couple of circuit boards. One gave a double take at the emblem on his flightsuit, then they were gone. He sighed and strode into the bridge with only the slightest of pauses to straighten his shoulders and put his best foot forward with as much confidence as he could muster. 'Not that different to a board room,' he muttered. 'And if Phantom can keep a crew together, anyone can…'

'Well, shiver me timbers - we've got the captain on the bridge!' one wag called out, getting sight of him. Well, two could play at that game.

'At ease you scruvy dock rats!' he called out cheerily as he sat down heavily in the captain's chair. There was a ripple of laughter from the assembled crew, civilian contractors to a man. A couple even threw a salute - remarkably sharp at that. He took a closer look at the miscreants and noticed the tell-tale marks of hardsuit calluses on their necks, not totally hidden by their collars. 'Out of interest, how many of you are either ex-military or on the reserve list?'

Out of the two dozen or so assembled persons, maybe half the hands went up.

His eyes narrowed. 'And how many are actively serving but currently on secondment here?'

Four more hands went up.

Jan Kugo - one young man whose hand had noticeably not been raised - sidled over. 'The Old Man thought you might need some expertise, sir. There were some staff on long term medical leave, and a few ex-servicemen who jumped at the chance of taking the old girl out.'

'And a few young chancers,' Mamoru told him, eying the lad up. 'What the hell are you doing here, Jan?'

'Part of my internship, sir. Arrived last night. I'll be your weapons officer for the trip.'

Mamoru winced. 'They did point out that this wasn't a milk run when they asked for volunteers? Our cover story for our cover story is that we're giving the ship her space trials. We'll try to avoid getting into a firefight, but if we do…'

Jan drew himself up to his full height - at about five foot nine considerably shorter than Mamoru, if rather stockier. 'I can handle it, Mr. Okita. I worked under Old Man Tanuki installing the new particle cannon - they've not yet been tested outside of the lab, and they need someone along who can re-calibrate them if needed.'

'Your technical skills aren't in question, Jan. What I'm more worried about is that you've never fired a weapon at another vessel in anger.'

'With all due respect sir,' Jan replied hotly, 'neither have you.'

There was a throaty chuckle from the first officer's station in front and to the left of the captain's desk. 'He's got you there, Okita.'

Mamoru glanced down at the speaker - a stout woman apparently in her late fifties, (actually a very well preserved sixty and change, if he remembered correctly…), with short, iron-grey hair. 'Captain Komarova?' She smiled at him - not that it was particularly reassuring. 'I thought you were still teaching at the Academy?'

'Doctor Oyama requested my input on the Deathshadow Project - over, I have to say, the constant _whining_ of your little brother. Bozhe moi, the lanky little shit does know how to sulk, doesn't he? Threw a proper little tantrum because he didn't get it all his own way.' She grinned at him. 'We thought you could use a steady hand on this trip.'

'The Terror of the Academy? How could I refuse?' he drawled. Knowing damn well he couldn't. Plausible deniability required a civilian operation. Operationally… well. It made sense giving him a second who could hold her ground if things got squirrely.

'I suspect you couldn't, she added dryly. 'And how's my namesake doing, you brown-nosing little plebe?'

Another ripple of laughter.

He grinned. 'And here was me thinking I was your favourite student? Ekaterina - Katy - is growing like a weed, and if we'd known you'd be here I'm sure she'd have sent a hug for her Aunty Kat.'

'All right, all right,' he called out as the laughter settled down. 'This isn't - for the moment - a military vessel, and we're not a military crew. But I do expect us to be a _professional_ crew. Once we reach our destination we've no idea what we'll be facing, and if it gets ugly, I expect all of you to do your jobs and obey orders promptly. There is a chain of command, and I expect you all to respect it. There's no time in a firefight for democracy.

'I'm not a military commander - you all know that. But for the duration I _am_ the captain of this ship. Day to day operations will fall under the first officer for combat, and the first mate for the rest. If anything reaches _my_ desk, I will not be pleased.' He looked around. 'Who did draw the short straw for first mate?' he asked.

A tall young man in his late twenties took a step forward. Long fair hair was pulled back into a short pony tail at the nape of his neck, and he filled out a red sweater almost to bursting point, with a slab of muscle that would do credit to a prize charolais bull masquerading as a chest. 'That'd be me.' Green eyes stared at him from under a long fringe with a challenging glare.

 _There's always one,_ he thought. Mamoru's mouth twitched. 'And you are?'

'Jones.'

'Got a first name?'

'Yep.'

 _Well, ask a stupid question_ … 'Good for you,' Mamoru replied heartily, relishing the moment when the smart-arse's mouth flapped open and shut a couple of times. _Spoiling for a bit of a fight, were we? Guess again._ 'Your station?'

'SAC.'

 _Surveillance and countermeasures, huh? I'd have pegged you for security, myself._

'Ever answer a question with more than monosyllabic grunts?'

Did he imagine the oh-so-slight twitch at the corner of the guy's mouth? 'Nope.'

Mamoru grinned. 'Didn't think so.' He looked around. 'Navigation?'

A short black guy with a bouncy afro waved a hand. 'Montoya, captain!' he called out cheerily. Mamoru acknowledged him with a nod. He surreptitiously called up the personnel files and gave them a quick once over. In the rush, he'd just had to rely on the old man to sort out the crew.

As expected most of them - apart from some of the old soldiers - were experts in their respective fields, along to make sure the new installations were working, and because they were the people you would take along on these trials - albeit not the heads of their sections, and most, he noticed with a smile, had a few comments in their files about their attitude... _Thanks, Oyama - send me out on a newly refurbished ship loaded with experimental tech and a crew stuffed full of the nerds you can best manage without..._

'Weapons, navigation, sensors, comms…' he murmured. He paused and looked to his right. 'Where's my comms officer?' According to the list, this should have been a short, dark, slightly plump young woman by the name of Inez Montoya, recently departed from Mictlan Communications' Warpfeed research division - and on closer inspection, the wife of his navigation officer.

'Here, captain. Sorry I'm late.' A dazzling flash of white shot past his chair and dropped into the vacant station. His first full look was at the back of a form-fitting white flightsuit and a long blonde plait.

Blonde.

Not dark. Definitely not of Mexican origin. And with a voice that was all too familiar.

Mamoru had to close his eyes and count to ten under his breath. When he opened them again…

No. She was still there. It wasn't just a dreadful nightmare.

'Jones - where's the brig?' he asked in his most amiable tone. The almost inaudible "ulp" from the comms station was quite gratifying.

'One level down directly under the bridge,' the first mate replied with a nasty smirk. 'Do we have an imposter?' Once he started talking, the accent was noticeably well-spoken, his Standard the plummy, precise tones associated with northern Europe.

'Not exactly,' Mamoru said softly. He made his way to the side of the comms station and offered a hand to his sister-in-law. 'But someone has a _lot_ of explaining to do…' He reached out a hand and snagged Kugo's arm before the youth could sneak off the bridge. 'Ah-ah, not so fast, young man. You had to have arrived on the last transport from Bayreuth, which means you must have had a hand in this. You and I are going to have a little chat once we're under way…'

'Not me?' Maya asked in a little voice that didn't fool him for a moment.

'You I'll deal with later. Komarova - find out what happened to Montoya, and see if we have time to swap…'

'You don't,' Jan blurted. 'She got sick - food poisoning.' He looked over at Montoya's husband who nodded. 'We've only got a small window to launch whilst the surveillance sats are looking elsewhere, so…'

'Si, capitan. Last night - Lady Maya's arrival was very fortunate - she has the credentials, and we did not know she would not be welcome - she _is_ on the board and señor Oyama said…'

'Captain?' Komarova waited for his reply.

'Get the ship prepped for launch.' He knew when he was beaten. He took his seat and wondered if it would look too bad if the captain asked for a pain killer for the headache slowly hammering away behind his eyes. Or maybe a whole damn bottle, to swallow before he had to explain this one away to his damn brother when he caught up to him...

'Who are you anyway?' he heard Jones stage whisper to Maya. 'His wife?'

'His brother's,' she replied smoothly, as she obeyed Mamoru's command to get the CEO on the link.

'Seriously? You're married to _that_ nutcase?' He sat back in his seat and whistled through his teeth. 'Shit, I just lost a hundred. I thought he was punting from the Cambridge end…'

* * *

 **Dis**

Harlock stared into a bowl of something that looked like congealed vomit, and stuck his spoon into it. As expected, it stayed upright when he took his hand away.

'You eating that, captain?' Kavanagh had finished licking out his own bowl and was now staring at his captain's with covetous eyes.

'I can't even bring myself to start it.' Despite his hunger, he wasn't quite ready to face the daily rations just yet. He pushed the bowl over. 'Have at it, Kav.'

Khalsa laid a hand on his as he pushed the bowl over, his light brown skin making Harlock's seem even more pallid by comparison. 'Captain - you've hardly eaten anything in three days.'

'When they serve food, I might consider eating it,' he snapped back.

'Well excuse you all to hell,' Kavanagh remarked to Khalsa as his fellow crewman drew back his hand, an affronted expression on his handsome face.

'Seems the _captain's_ just too fancy to eat with the likes of us.' One of the inmates who'd been here much longer than the remaining crew of the Yukikaze leaned back in his seat and smirked. 'What's the matter your lordship - don't like eating with the hired help? Think yer better than us?'

Harlock ignored them all.

'This one's Solar System,' a ragged young man piped up. He scratched at a thin, scraggly beard. 'Earthers think they're better than everyone - that's why they're fighting so hard to keep us from going back home. This one's likely killed hundreds of us, ain't ya?' He walked over and gave Harlock a shove. 'I'm talkin' to you, pretty boy.' He reached out to run a finger down one sharp cheekbone. 'Definitely pretty. Be a shame to mess the other side up, wouldn't it?'

He howled as a hand reached out with lightning speed, grabbed the offending finger and bent it backwards with an audible snap. 'Don't. Touch. Me.' Harlock didn't even look at him.

Kav looked over at Khalsa and sighed. 'Here we go again…' Both men made as if to stand to protect their captain, as the young prisoner spat profanities and cradled his broken finger.

'Fucker broke it!' he wailed. His compatriots rallied round, the mood turning quickly.

'That's another worker ain't gonna be able to make his fuckin' quota,' one of the bigger, older inmates growled. 'Your fancy long-haired boy here still can't pull his weight with that arm, and you can't be arsed to break a fingernail or break a sweat doing your share. The guards don't bother us too much if we make quota - but you just made that a lot harder, sweetie.'

Kavanagh moved calmly to put himself between his still apparently uncaring captain, and the two hundred and fifty pounds of muscle bearing down on them. 'Back off. Before this gets ugly.'

'Too late, lookin' at your face, you dumb mick.' The big guy spat at the floor, the phlegm landing on Kavanagh's big toe. 'Too posh to do his own fightin' as well, is he? Needs you two to wash his arse for him?'

'Kav.' Harlock's voice was quiet, but resigned. 'Stand down.'

'But cap'n…'

Harlock stood up, drawing himself up to his full height. Even badly clothed and weary, he was still an impressive enough sight to make the waverers back away at the sight of the wiry muscle on view through his unzipped coveralls, which currently exposed a v of his chest from collarbones to navel. 'Stand down.' He laid a hand on Kav's shoulder and gently pushed him out of the way. He took two steps forward, to bring himself to just outside of arm's reach of the bruiser threatening them.

'What the hell is wrong with you people?' he asked calmly, looking around the room. He brought his gaze back to rest on the bruiser - the man was about six foot tall, and his bulk was all muscle under a good protective layer around his middle. Difficult to do any real damage to anything internal, unless he was put down very hard, very fast, with extreme prejudice. 'You plan to do what - sit out your days digging out precious ores on a hellhole with no chance of ever getting home. For what? Protein and carb slop and the chance to occasionally fuck something other than each other?' His hand swept out and pushed the bowl onto the floor. The thin plastic merely bounced, its contents splattered over his feet, but he ignored that indignity. 'Is that all any of you think you're worth?'

'It's better than dying!' someone at the back called out.

'Is it?' Harlock asked. He brushed his unruly hair out of his eyes. 'Most of you are fit enough to take on these guards if you work together, but so far all I've seen is a bunch of whining fucktards bitching about not making quota. Is this what humanity has come to? Scratching in the dirt like whipped curs at the bidding of leeches who aren't even fit to lick your feet clean, turning on each other because it's easier than actually fighting what - and who - truly oppresses you?' He glared around the room. 'No - you're worse than curs - a dog never puts a collar around its own neck!'

'A couple of weeks here and you think you can take on all of this?' the bruiser swept a hand out to take in their surroundings. 'You think this work group, or the handful of other groups we see out here is all there is?' He took a step closer to Harlock, but his attempt at intimidation was undermined by having to stare up into the eyes of the younger, lighter man in front of him.

Harlock's lip curled in cold amusement.

'You make waves and we _all_ suffer, you entitled little prick. There's no way off this planet. Even if we fought our way through the masked men, you get to the surface and you get blasted by the sandstorms. They never stop. Machines don't work for long on the surface. Stay out long enough and you'll find yourself stripped down to your bones for your trouble.' He spat again. 'I've seen your kind come and go - one thing I've learned - better to just put you down before you make too many waves for the rest of us.'

'Is that your answer?' Harlock ignored Khalsa's frantic tugging on his sleeve as though it were a gnat. 'Cling to a hopeless, pointless existence in the name of survival rather than make a stand?'

'A stand for what?' someone called out. 'We ain't got _nothin'_. Even if we get out, what the fuck do we have to go back to? The planets we come from are as bad as this one - or worse!'

'Easy to say you'll stand and fight when you got something to go home to!' someone else shouted. 'Fuckin' Earther! You and your kind stand there and tell us we should fight for something better - but you're the ones standing in the way of that! Oh yeah - fight for something better, but guess what - you can't have Earth, move along!'

'Earth can't handle the numbers who want to return!' Khalsa shouted back. 'Where the hell do you think the returnees could go?'

'Dunno, but ya got green, and fresh water, and that's more than most of us have ever seen!'

The bruiser smirked at Harlock. 'Welcome to the revolution, pretty boy. Ain't what you thought it would be, is it? I suggest you just sit down, shut the fuck up, eat your porridge and pull yer fuckin' weight later when they take us out.'

'No.'

A hush fell over the room, even though he hadn't raised his voice.

'I don't think you heard me, yer lordship.'

'I heard you. You just aren't saying anything I want to listen to.'

'Last chance, cheekbones. We can't afford to lose any more workers if we want to keep to the quota. Sit down and shut up.'

Harlock shifted his weight slightly, and advanced his right foot a fraction, avoiding the mess on the floor. 'No.'

He didn't have to wait long for the reply. He dodged the first punch with his usual minimal flair, although a meaty fist caught his ribs a glancing blow. He rode out that hit, and swung hard - not for the face or stomach of his attacker, but for a spot on the side of that thick neck.

His left connected under the big man's chin, but not hard enough to do more than briefly wind him. But it did force his opponent to turn his head just slightly.

His right smashed into the vagus nerve with as much force as he could put behind it, and with little more than a startled grunt, the thug hit the ground as though he'd been poleaxed.

Silence.

'Oh crap,' Harlock heard Kavanagh mutter. 'There's twenty of them and only two and a half of us, with Khal's arm out, you did think of that didn't you?'

'Don't think of it as being outnumbered…' Harlock began, as the first group of three of the boldest began to edge their way towards them.

'No. Nope. Uh-uh. _That_ is _not_ a "real big target selection" We're screwed.' Kavanagh replied pithily.

'It gets worse,' Khalsa murmured to Harlock's right. 'I think the guards are going to get involved.'

'Perfect,' Harlock replied, with rather more confidence than he actually felt. 'At least we have their attention.'

'Oh god,' Kavanagh groaned. He swung a punch at the first of the prisoners to reach them, and the man went down, sending his mates flying. The three men moved to back each other up, facing the oncoming brawl. 'Did you get dropped on your head in that last firefight?'

Khalsa sighed. 'This,' he added lugubriously, 'is _not_ going to end well…'

'Such negativity,' Harlock tsked at them. 'It's not as though they have anything in the way of weapons.'

Kavanagh dodged the business end of a stone knife ground to a razor sharp edge that appeared in its owner's hand with the kind of timing reserved for the cheaper end of the entertainment industry, and swore. 'He had to fucking say it, didn't he…' he growled, as he noticed the same dark, expertly knapped blades appearing in hands across the room. He blocked the lower arm of the idiot holding it, snapped his elbow into the guy's face and then grabbed the knife as his attacker staggered back with blood pouring from his nose. 'Captain!'

Harlock caught the homemade blade with lightning reflexes, and gripped it firmly, the blade snug along the length of his arm. 'That's more like it, Kav. Now how about a firearm or two when the guards turn up?'

The reply was almost certainly unrepeatable, but lost in the melee as the prisoners finally threw caution to the winds and attacked en masse.

* * *

The insistent ringing of the alarm woke Victor from a pleasant dream. The naked woman next to him stirred but didn't awaken. But then, it had been a pleasurably tiring night.

'Harken.' He snapped into the commlink.

'Commander? There's a riot in one of the dormitories. Several inmates down, and three casualties.'

The metallic voice on the other end held no hint of apology. But then, when you strip men of their autonomy… 'Is it contained?'

'For now, sir. We've sealed off the corridor - it won't spread to the other dorms.'

Casualties… he mulled over the news. The workers were not supposed to be capable of arming themselves - they'd taken every precaution to remove both materials and tools from the prisoners. They shouldn't be capable of taking on the masked men. 'Which dorm?' he asked, suspecting the answer already.

'Thirteen.'

 _Harlock…_ He sighed. 'Have you turned on the suppressant yet?'

'No sir - your orders -'

It held a twenty percent chance of killing those it was used on. Not his preferred option. 'Turn it on - thirty seconds only, to minimise the losses. It should make them drowsy enough to deal with. I'll be right down.' He slid his legs over until he was sitting on the edge of the bed, the sheet caught around his thighs. Even though this pulled the sheet from her shoulders, the brunette next to him just mumbled in her sleep and rolled over.

He smiled fondly and brushed a stray hair back off her shoulder. Lilah had proved to be both energetic and flexible. But after three months… He dropped a kiss onto her forehead. A man grew tired of the same fare…

Later, as a treat for having to deal with that over-sized freak, perhaps he'd send for the new red-head.

In the meantime, a certain captain was going to have a lesson or two in consequences. Something that would help with another intractable little problem. He stood up and stretched before reaching for the commlink. 'Number 57 - meet me at the lift to the dorm level with Lieutenant Oyama, would you?'

Two troublesome little birds with one stone.

It was going to be a productive day. He could just feel it...


	6. Chapter 6

**Deathshadow - Titan orbit.**

'What on Earth possessed you to come all the way out here?'

Maya flinched, but refused to back down. Mamoru hardly ever raised his voice, but the note of disappointment, worry and annoyance in his tone were somehow even worse than shouting. He had a way of making people feel ashamed of requiring his censure that was far worse than any loud posturing. Harlock aimed for it, but usually ended up radiating scorn instead.

'Maya - you have two small boys who already think I'm their father because he's hardly ever there. Now you plan on being away for weeks or even months yourself? Don't you trust me?' He finished this last sentence on a softer, sadder note.

She had to bite back the urge to apologise. The truth was, she wasn't sorry, as such - and he knew it. Well… she was sorry for making him worry. For having to leave the boys in Miranda's and Liesl's care...And for dropping herself in his lap, so to speak. 'If they're alive-'

'If they're alive, I'll find them,' he promised her. 'No matter what it takes - but you have to understand, we could take months to track them down. They aren't in any of the listed prisoner of war camps. No colonial ship has been near the battle - which means it's an independent, one with the resources to cut up these ships where they lie, and to be able to transport any prisoners.' He laid a comforting hand on her shoulder and stared into her eyes. 'Maya - these people - they're ruthless. They care nothing for "sides" - they've harvested both fleets, and it's likely they took the prisoners as forced labour. There are hundreds of borderline terrorist outfits operating with impunity since the breakdown of law out there. Even worse are the corporate raiders taking advantage of the situation - profiting by selling their weapons to the highest bidder, and using slave labour on marginal worlds to mine the raw materials. I do _not_ want to take _you_ into that.'

She laid her hand on his, and squeezed it gently. 'I understand the risks, Mamoru. But I can't sit back and let other people run those risks for me. They have my husband - I won't leave him out there lost in the dark. I have to find him.'

'My dear, 'he said softly, 'that's _my_ job…'

'And mine is communications - both standard and covert. If there's anyone better out here, right now, who can decrypt coded transmissions, then by all means - send me home!' She glared at him defiantly. 'You need someone who understands _Deathshadow's_ new communication suite as well - and since I helped work on it…' She held her head up and waited for him to reply.

The hardest part was not holding her breath. Mamoru's more easy-going nature made a lot of people - herself included, if she was honest - under-estimate him, thinking he lacked his younger half-brother's stubborn, ruthless streak. In the years since she'd lived with the family, she still hadn't worked out if he deliberately cultivated that manner, or it just came as naturally to him as Harlock's hair-trigger obstinacy did.

'If Montoya's wife hadn't indulged in some out of date imported shellfish, I'd be hustling you out of the airlock so fast you'd have friction burns,' he replied eventually. 'Damn it, Maya - this isn't going to be a quick jaunt - we'll very likely hit trouble, and although you can handle yourself, I do not want you involved in a firefight.'

She let out a breath she'd not even realised she'd been holding.

'But - ' he held up a finger before she could say anything. 'No special treatment. You do what you're told, and stick to your job. Nothing else. No heroics, no going off half-cocked. You've picked up a few bad habits from my brother,' he finished with a wry smile.

A little cheekily she grinned at him. 'My own brothers would probably tell you I already had those.'

'And here was me hoping you might be a calming influence on the idiot,' he muttered. He gave her a quick hug. 'I really should know better. Now shift your behind and get back to the station you were so keen to take. We've got a large jump to make.'

'Aye aye, sir' She snapped him a fairly respectable salute once she'd stepped out of the gentle embrace.

'I'm surrounded by hot-heads…' More seriously he continued: 'But Maya - don't get your hopes up too high. It's a big universe, and right now a very dangerous one. Just because they were taken alive…'

'I know,' she told him, her voice almost inaudible. 'I know. But if it was the other way around, do you think anything would stop him from coming after me?'

'I think,' he said under his breath watching her walk out, 'that he'd tear the universe apart to get you back…' And he shivered, as though something had walked over his grave. He followed her to the bridge, taking his time.

In the viewing window of his quarters, around the edges of the blast shield, faint blue lightning flickered.

* * *

 **Dis**

The route his captors seemed intent on marching him through ran through a large hangar, shielded from the elements by a force wall. Tochiro looked around with feigned disinterest as he tried to take a good look at the crates being loaded onto sledges for transport into an orbiting freighter. The quantities alone were staggering. The minerals - processed on site, judging by the machinery they passed along the way - were high end, high grade rare earths, and the combinations he saw deepened the frown on his already furrowed brow. Along with the processed alloys he could see being loaded, the most likely use for these was in the construction of hyperspace gates, which to the best of his considerable knowledge, didn't really have a practical application. It was far cheaper to simply move goods and people via ship, although his grandpa had had an idea once, rejected as impractical at the time simply because of the logistics of manufacturing and positioning enough gates between worlds.

' _An interstellar railway!' the old man had declaimed, waving his arms around as though to indicate the scale. 'Imagine it - regular, scheduled transport between systems - even between galaxies.'_

' _Impractical,' his father had scoffed. 'It would take decades to build and pay for itself.'_

' _Your problem is, you think small…'_ They'd carried on bickering for years on the subject, he recalled fondly.

Staring at the crates, Tochiro had to wonder. Would it be possible? _Except… A few years ago, they'd found those blueprints for the Zone facility off Jupiter… those had looked like hyperspace gates, but they'd been far too small to admit anything bigger than a Cosmo Tiger._

'Where do you ship to?' he asked brightly, jogging to keep up with the affable prick with the pointy ears who'd dragged him out of bed at such an ungodly hour. 'I mean - you must have a customer for this little lot, right?' He swore under his breath as his socks slipped on the polished floor. They'd been savvy enough to make sure he wouldn't get far without trying to take out one of the masked goons for his boots.

'Is this the point where I start boasting about my dastardly plan so that you can thwart it?' His captor sounded amused. 'Nice try. You'll find out soon enough. One way or another, you'll be shipping out with the next batch.'

'Why mess with a classic, I say,' Tochiro replied brightly. 'You know, you haven't even told me your name yet - I can't keep calling you "pointy-eared prick" forever, now can I?'

No reply, unless you counted the thin-lipped, cold, amused smile that made him think of a resting crocodile. 'So - where are you taking me? How long am I going to have to slip around in my socks for, coz - this floor - not great for traction. Can I see Harlock? What's all this stuff for? I mean, it looks to me like someone's building either a really big hyperspace gate, or a lot of little ones, somewhere. Is this anything to do with that sadistic little hunchback? Are we there yet? And when do I get breakfast? Coz you guys dragged me out of bed before I'd had my coffee, and I can get a little cranky first thing before breakfast. Just ask my wife…'

'Dear god... ' the Pointy Eared Prick muttered. 'Do you _ever_ shut up?'

Tochiro giggled. 'Don't put money on it.' He tried to slap away the hand holding him, but the two hundred pound gorilla in the metal mask had a grip as iron as his face. 'I'm surprised you haven't put us in these masks yet, if it's cooperation you want.'

'They have their limitations', the PEP drawled. 'For one thing they tend to render the more creative parts of the brain somewhat useless - and whilst technical staff and soldiers can function perfectly well, minds like your own are a little more precious.'

'I'd be flattered if I cared a damn for your opinion. But your prisoners?'

'Oh - we don't waste the masks on those. What would be the point? With the right motivation, the dumb mass of the majority of humanity is quite capable of policing itself.' He laughed grimly. 'They sleepwalked themselves into this war, after all - on both sides.'

'With how much encouragement?' Tochiro growled.

'Oh,' he waved a hand airily, still without turning around. 'We can't take credit for all of that. Although once it became clear that most of the colonies were doomed, it didn't take too much effort to make suggestions in the right places.'

Tochiro scowled as he had to start jogging again to keep up with the other mens' longer legs. As they left the hangar, they'd started to walk a little faster and Tochiro's shorter legs couldn't keep pace. 'So - you just saw an opportunity and took it?'

'Exactly. You'd do well to consider doing the same. Although you'd never be permitted to breed, you could still contribute to humanities' future in the stars.'

'A future where your kind wait until the rest of us have wiped each other out and you can just waltz in and take over the worlds they've left behind?' Tochiro snorted. 'Good luck with that. Have you solved the terraforming problem yet? And when you've watched all the people you despise so much slaughter each other, who's going to do all the work that you "elites" will consider beneath your exalted station? Or maintain the machines you rely on?'

'A few will survive. With careful maintenance and controlled breeding.'

It was a good job they'd come to a halt outside a security door, as Tochiro stopped in his tracks with his mouth open. 'I'm starting to think we're fighting the wrong war…' he muttered.

'There's no such thing, if you're prepared to take full advantage of the situation,' the PEP replied with an almost audible smirk as he stepped into the room, leaving Tochiro to fantasise about the effects of a large heavy wrench impacting on the back of that self-satisfied skull.

* * *

 **El Alamein**

Deathshadow exited IN-SKIP behind a stream of photons. To any onlookers this looked as though the ship were being printed in real space-time by a series of hundreds of printer heads all working frantically in the instant between one blink and another to create a ship out of the attenuated matter of deep space.

On board the ship it was merely a brief shudder from stem to stern. Most casual travellers never even noticed it. For jumps in-system, the change between the imaginary number space and real space was almost unnoticeable. But over interstellar distances that moment of transition was like the moment between sleeping and waking, when the human mind struggled to reassert what was real and whatever dream was loosening its grip on the former sleeper was slowly receding into the subconscious, leaving one disoriented until the false reality faded like mist in the morning sun.

Mamoru Okita was far from being a casual traveller, but the vast distance of interstellar space was something he'd faced only a few times in his forty three years. And never before as the captain of his own ship. Once he shook off the dreamlike disorientation of translation, he felt a mild euphoria creep over him, as though every nerve were tingling.

'Take a couple of deep breaths,' Komarova advised from her station. 'Or think of baseball. It will wear off in a minute.'

He laughed. 'That obvious?'

She shrugged. 'That sloppy grin all newbies get when they make their first big jump. Unmistakable. Mind you, I've known a few jizzed in their pants over the years. Some pilots just get intoxicated on it.'

'The ones you weed out,' he added drily, hiding a grin at his sister-in-law's barely audible "eww".

'Anyone contemplating their cocks or fannys when they exit IN-SKIP's a liability in battle,' Jones added.

'I'd have thought it would be a liability for any space faring occupation,' Maya added. 'Rather like discussing erectile problems arising from warp travel when you should be getting a reading on our surroundings…'

'Some of us can multi-task, yer ladyship,' he shot back. 'Short range scanners pick up nothing, but on the mid-range I'm getting a large mass reading and severe energy distortion consistent with oscillator cannon fire and warp engine explosions. A lot of debris and radiation.'

Mamoru smiled. After a rocky couple of days, the bridge crew seemed to be settling down nicely. 'Komarova, take us in, slowly. Shields up, get us close enough to get a visual scan of the battlefield.'

'Aye aye, sir.'

'Maya - keep scanning the frequencies for any chatter. The aftermath of a battle like this is a prime target for scavengers.'

'I've been scanning since we exited. Nothing so far, apart from a friendly IFF closing on our location. A civilian ship identifying as the _Falcon_. Registry… Herise!' She smiled up at Mamoru, looking genuinely happy for the first time in weeks. 'It's Manfred!'

'That's a diplomatic ship,' Jones added, checking the ID for himself. 'What's it doing out here?'

'He agreed to meet me here,' Mamoru said. 'It was Manfred Rosenbach who tracked down the scavengers selling gear looted from the wreckage of the _Yukikaze_.'

'See,' Jones sat back in his chair and laced his fingers together behind his head. 'Is this where you explain finally what we're doing all the way out here? Because a few items stripped off a dead ship seems a lot of trouble over nothing.'

'The _Yukikaze_ had intel suggesting a traitor in high places set this fleet up for an ambush. If we can find any proof of that…' Mamoru trailed off. 'It's not however the only mission. We're meeting Rosenbach because he found evidence that my brother and Tochiro are still alive - or were when they were taken at least. There's more to it, but he refused to discuss it on an open channel. Hence the meeting.'

'His place or ours?' Jones asked with a grin.

'He'll transfer to _Deathshadow_ \- after we've done a sweep here, we'll be heading to the sector where the parts have been showing up.' Mamoru leaned forward in his seat. 'Maya? Any signal from the ship yet?'

She looked up and back from her station. 'With all the interference it's all I can do to pick up the IDF. Maybe if we backed out a little…'

Mamoru shook his head. 'No. The interference will help cover us from any raiders lurking, or any other hostiles monitoring the area. Send a visual if you can with the pulse lasers - and Komarova - all ahead slow. When we get close enough, send over a boarding tube.'

'Aye aye, captain.'

Mamoru leaned back in his seat and loosened his collar. He'd already dispensed with his jacket, which hung casually over the arm of his chair. Staring out of the main viewscreen at the starry backdrop always made it seem as though the ship was crawling at a snail's pace, with no references to judge their speed. With a quiet sigh, he closed his eyes, and let the background noises and movements of the ship tell him their story.

* * *

 _ **Dis**_

Victor handled the stone blade with undisguised admiration. 'You say the workers have been knapping these?' He handed it back to the chief of security, another Shaitan native. 'Impressive. And rather good workmanship. I don't suppose there's any hope of identifying the originator?'

'We've checked the footage, Commander Harken. There are a handful of blind spots we didn't spot - they were so small no-one had thought they posed any real threat.' The security officer swallowed hard.

'Pity. I'd prefer to recruit him.' Victor turned his attention back to the assembled prisoners, all of whom were currently shackled, their arms behind their backs. Off to one side, glaring at him from under a shock of dark hair and through two purpling eyes, was the annoying young giant from the Alliance fleet. His two surviving officers stood next to him, all three battered, bruised and defiant. The sikh, he noticed, was still cradling his arm. It was this last observation which decided his course of action. 'Release everyone but the Alliance men,' he instructed his staff. They complied efficiently, quickly emptying the room apart from Victor, three guards on the officers, and one on the quietly seething young Oyama. Hands behind his back he walked over to the trio, and looked up at their captain. 'You, it seems, need to learn a lesson in consequences,' he said amiably. 'And I'm getting a crick in my neck talking to you.' He nodded to one of the masked men, who forced the man to his knees. Not without difficulty, although the arrogant idiot stayed mulishly silent.

Even Oyama was keeping his over-active mouth shut for once, presumably waiting to see what would happen. 'You really are quite a troublemaker, Harlock.' Stubborn silence, the young man's sensual mouth compressed into a thin line, the effect rather spoilt by blood trickling slowly from a nasty cut on his bottom lip. Victor sighed. 'Well, I can't start slaughtering malcontents on a whim… I do have targets to reach, after all.'

'Are you planning on talking me to death?'

Tochiro sniggered, then turned it into a cough. Give Phantom about half an hour with the uptight prick and the guy would be losing that calm demeanour in record time. Not even Komarova, their tactics instructor, had managed more than twenty minutes, back in the Academy. He caught Harlock's eye and winked, earning a wry, one-sided smile in return. Well, the situation was bad, but it could be worse…

The PEP - Harken? - nodded to the masked goon, next to Harlock, who placed the business end of his pistol to Harlock's right temple. 'Still think this is amusing?' he asked over his shoulder, smiling at Tochiro. A tilt of his chin towards the masked man holding Khalsa was his cue to drag the sikh protesting and struggling from the room. Harlock surged to his feet - or tried to. His warder clubbed him sharply on the neck, hard enough to knock him to the ground. Both Tochiro and Kavanagh yelled and tried to break free, but to no avail. Their bonds - and their guards - were too strong.

'I did say there would be consequences,' Harken told Harlock. One masked man hauled Harlock back to his knees, and another forced Kav down onto his next to his captain. 'That injured one's not much use in his current state, but I had a read of his file - quite a useful countermeasures tech apparently. That, I can use. He'll be put through the Masking programme. If he doesn't put up too much of a fight, there should be a reasonable amount of his personality left intact afterwards.'

'You fucking bastard!' Harlock surged forwards, trying to break free and get to Harken, who stood just out of reach, with the indifferent smugness of a cat taunting a small dog from the top of a fence. 'I'm the one who started this - I'm to blame. Punish me, not them!'

'My dear boy, I _am_ punishing you. I'm not _punishing_ your man - I'm _using_ him. There's a difference. Your punishment is that you get to watch, and hopefully learn a valuable lesson in responsibility.' He nodded to the masked figure holding Kavanagh, and without warning, the guard drew his blaster, placed it to Kavanagh's head and pulled the trigger.

Tochiro couldn't tell who yelled the loudest, himself or Harlock, but his friend's anguished bellows of profanity-laden rage would have warned anyone who knew him to get out of that room, fast. Tochiro was knocked to the floor by his own captor, and could only watch helplessly from a low angle as Harlock's anger-fuelled surge dragged his guard off his feet, allowing Harlock to relieve him of his blaster and in one smooth move, use it to shoot through his shackles to free his legs. Even with his wrists still bound he was able to take out the two guards who tried to take him down, avoid a couple of blaster bolts and make a leap for Harken.

All in silence. Tochiro swallowed hard. _Oh, fuck… it was never good when he went all quiet_ …His own guard had joined in the fray, and he took the opportunity to try and wriggle back to his feet, but his socks kept slipping on the floor. He went very still as a soft click sounded next to his ear.

'Harlock…' he called out, trying to get his friend's attention. At the moment most of that was focused on Harken's throat, along with his hands, and he had the pointy-eared bastard pinned to the floor. The heat from the recently fired blaster against his ear was excruciating, being as it was pressed against the sensitive skin of his earlobe. _Well that's gonna blister… Huh. A blistering blaster…_ He tried desperately not to whimper, but dammit, it sodding well _hurt..._

'Let him go,' Harlock snarled, tightening his grip on Harken's throat.

'I don't think so.' The voice coming from near Tochiro's scorching ear was unmodulated. 'Release Harken, or I'll happily remove Oyama's ugly head from his shoulders.'

Tochiro frowned. That voice… the accent… they were horribly familiar. He sniffed, and almost gagged. _That aftershave_ … 'Nevich?!' The blaster was removed from his ear, although that did little for the pain. Distracted, he had missed the moment when Harlock had let go of Harken, and was being slammed to the ground and being practically wrapped in chains by more masked men, who'd presumably followed Nevich into the room.

'The wonderful thing about having the pair of you in one place,' Nevich said sweetly as Tochiro was halued to his feet, 'is that it gives me control over you. Neither of you will risk the other's life, even to save their own.'

'Just how long were you waiting outside before you decided to come to the rescue,' Harken snarled, his voice sounding rather rougher than it had before Harlock had tried to tear his throat out. 'And why are you here, Alexei? I was expecting Doctor Hechi.'

'Hechi's busy. Some idiot is poking around into the El Alamein facility.' He handed back the pistol he held to its owner, and the masked man took it with no show of emotion. 'Apparently Sanada recovered enough to start talking. But I'm just here for the goblin genius,' Tochiro spat at him as he waved a gloved hand in his direction, 'and to take delivery of the next shipment. The test firing went perfectly - we're ready to move to a full scale model.'

'Not here,' Harken replied curtly. 'We'll discuss this in private.'

'As you wish.' Nevich inclined his head with a minimal grace, and straightened his hat with one elegant twitch of his fingers. 'I suppose I should bow to your superior judgement, since you seem to have things here so well under control…'

Under other circumstances the potential for a nasty outbreak of sarcasm between these two would have been cause for a smirk or two, but with Kav's body cooling on the floor between them with most of his face missing, neither Tochiro - nor, it seemed, Harlock - could really get into the moment.

'Your company is useful to us, Nevich - not indispensable,' Harken snapped. 'Guards - take this pair away. Lock them up. I'll decide what to do with Harlock later.'

'Just kill him,' Nevich advised with a shrug. 'He's an annoying pest. Of no use to us.' He walked towards Harlock and stared up at him, careful to stay out of arm's reach even though Harlock was chained. 'A pity you're not the other one - your brother would probably be useful. A rebellious, irresponsible fighter jock with sloppy impulse control promoted above his abilities - not so much.'

'You're a walking dead man,' Harlock growled softly. 'If I don't get to you, be sure Mamoru will. You can't hide behind your Admiralty contacts forever.'

'No. I suppose I can't,' Nevich sighed with mock regret. 'How are your nieces and your lovely sister in law these days?'

Reminding Harlock of the last time they'd crossed swords wasn't the smartest move, Tochiro thought as he watched Harlock try to lunge for the bastard. That time his men had threatened to rape and murder Mamoru's family, and Nevich himself had put a bullet in the older of the brothers. The attempt failed, since three men and a shitload of chains were hanging off his friend's lanky form, but the attention on the drama in front of him left Tochiro momentarily unguarded, and he took advantage of the opening to launch himself at Nevich.

It was awkward - he wasn't really much of a combat specialist, and - damn those socks - he slipped on take off, But he did manage to knock the smug snake flying, and landed on top of him.

He took a piece of Nevich's ear with him when they pulled him off, and spat it onto the floor, grinning from ear to blistered ear.

'Take them away.' Harken, Tochiro noticed, was not trying to hide his own smirk as the pair of them were hauled unceremoniously out of the room. The last thing he could make out as he was shoved through the doorway was Harken's solicitous tone asking Nevich if he wanted some help - or if he had the situation under control.


	7. Chapter 7

**El Alamein**

Mamoru had to adjust the pistol in his holster as he walked - the damn thing had a tendency to bump against his leg and he made a note to replace the standard-issue holster with a tie-down.

'You know, I'd heard of a mid-life crisis,' Jones said conversationally as they walked the corridor leading to the main airlock. 'But damn, that's some serious over-compensation, captain!'

'A present from my brother and his best friend for my fortieth birthday a couple of years ago,' Mamoru replied with a grimace. 'I hadn't had time to get used to actually wearing it yet. I never need to back home.'

'Uh-huh. This would be the same brother who thinks it's a hoot to dress you like a pirate?'

As hard as he tried Mamoru could not resist the sudden urge to tug at the front of his flightsuit. Jones sniggered. 'Oh - laugh it up, _Constance_ ,' Mamoru sniped good-naturedly.

'That's _Constantine_ ,' Jones corrected. 'Just "Con", if we're being friendly.' He elbowed Mamoru lightly in the ribs. 'Hey - not that I'm one to ask to man-handle another guy's weapon, but could I take a look?'

Mamoru flipped the catch and handed over the piece, which was indeed a monster. Con Jones whistled appreciatively as he hefted it in his hand. 'Thought this was an antique at first and wondered what the hell you were doing with a percussion piece on board - but it's a rather nice little blaster underneath, isn't it?' He handled it reverently. 'Nicely balanced as well, for all the weight.' He peered at the legend engraved on one side of the barrel. 'Tochiro patent: Grape Valley Titan, 2872…' he read out. 'Serial number F-111'.'

'One of a kind,' Mamoru said as he took it back and re holstered it. 'Based on the old Desert Eagle - we have a collection of classic arms in the Schloss. My brother's a bit of a romantic - prefers the nineteenth century and earlier. I preferred a bit more reliability and stopping power. After we were attacked a few years back and ended up raiding the museum for weapons, Tochiro thought it would be a good idea to upgrade a few of the designs. Harlock got a brace of flintlock replicas that he promptly lost during some debacle two years ago. If I remember rightly Tochiro was going to replace them with a variant on the old Colt Dragoon.' He patted the sidearm fondly. 'He calls this one the Cosmo Eagle.'

'Cosmo cannon might be more like it. That looks as though it has some serious stopping power.'

Mamoru grinned. 'Hell yes. The first time I practiced with it it scared the hell out of me. Packs almost as much kick as the original.'

Con patted his own sidearm fondly. 'Gotta love that guy - one of the perks of working for you lot is the toys - we all got the new Cosmo M78s he designed. Serious firepower, just when you need it most…'

'Well hopefully we won't be going hand to hand. I'm even more impressed with the new optical cannon on the _Deathshadow_. I saw the trials they ran in the Kuiper belt last year. It's not just the extra firepower I'm impressed by - the recycle rate of fire is almost double the old model.'

'More efficient as well,' Con nodded sagely. 'Draws a lot less power from the engines for a bigger boom.'

They turned the last corner in tandem. 'Is that even a technical term?' Mamoru asked him.

'Is now!' Con pointed. 'I think our guest is waiting. Shouldn't his sister be here? I thought…'

'If he has information about my brother and Tochiro, I'd prefer to find out before Maya does. Whatever the news.' They drew level with the new arrival just as the anchor tube irised shut behind him. 'Manfred!' Mamoru greeted Maya's brother warmly. 'It's been too long.'

Manfred took Mamoru's offered hand and shook it, his grasp warm dry and firm. 'Blame this damn war - if you can dignify it with the term. Somedays I feel as though the rest of the human race got dropped on their heads whilst I wasn't looking. Your government doesn't give out many entry visas these days - even for those of us born on Earth. That last round of restrictions might just have alienated any moderate voices in the colonies for good.'

'It's not that easy travelling the other way,' Mamoru replied. 'Unless of course we're planning on shooting something,' he added drily. 'For some reason that's a popular pastime on both sides.' He gestured towards his quarters. 'This way - we can have a quiet talk.' He introduced Con Jones as they walked. 'Strictly speaking we're not a military vessel at the moment, so I've run with a rather more fluid structure. It seems to work so far.'

'Strictly speaking?' Manfred rolled his eyes. 'There's hair splitting, and then there's a refitted destroyer with some shiny new weapons attached strolling into colonial space on the QT. Have you been spending too much time with my father?'

'Well technically we're not active military personnel, and the ship was decommissioned and handed over to a civilian company for research…' Con offered helpfully.

'Yes… I'm sure the SDF will take that into consideration - after they have you all taken out and shot as spies - or pirates,' Manfred murmured, with a meaningful stare at the front of Mamoru's flightsuit. 'I don't envy you, Mamoru - you'd have been safer if you'd reactivated your commission for this jaunt - at least as a commissioned officer you'd be treated as a prisoner of war.'

'That didn't help my brother much, did it?' Mamoru's tone was even, but the rebuke was still there.

'Harlock was taken by a civilian outfit - albeit one with a large vested interest in keeping the fighting going.'

'Armaments?'

Manfred shrugged. 'Possibly - but the subsidiary in question actually supplies the raw materials for a lot of things. Ships, weapons… rumour has it they make use of unprotected populations in their mining operations. Unlicensed asteroid mining with acid ablation… marginal worlds where machinery isn't cost-effective...'

'Slavery in other words,' Con snarled, his hands curling into fists.

Manfred gave him a sharp look. 'And yet, they might end up the lucky ones. Freedom to starve and die is no freedom. Away from the industrialised systems, the rule of law is long gone. There's no food, no money. The economy collapsed years ago. It might be utterly reprehensible, but on some worlds, those taken are the only ones with a chance of survival at all. There's nowhere else to go - Destiny… Grand Technologia… Herise… Lar Metal… Earth… all the "civilised" worlds have closed their borders. The signs read "no vacancies", and not a single world has the resources to take in the sheer numbers of refugees out here.'

'It's just plain wrong,' Con muttered, as they entered Mamoru's office. 'Using people like that.'

'Not in question - but you have to remember that a lot of people sold themselves and their families in the faint hope of survival, and there are far worse situations to be in, out on the edge. We call this a "war", but it isn't, not really. No government or group has declared open season on another. This is a handful of the privileged fighting tooth and nail to stop a flood of desperate, starving people from fleeing intolerable conditions in the hope of a better life. And those people are being preyed upon as well by those who want nothing better than to profit from the mess, and bide their time until the inevitable happens and human civilisation implodes, so that they can feed off the carcass. Those of us trying to stop it might as well try and stop the tide from coming in.' Manfred dropped into a free chair and ran his fingers through his blond hair. 'I feel for my father - he's on Destiny right now negotiating - but it's futile. There's nothing to negotiate and no-one who can even begin to put the brakes on. We hit the tipping point years ago, and now the whole damn avalanche is rolling down the mountain.'

'A little fatalistic,' Mamoru murmured. 'There's always hope.'

Manfred shook his head. 'Only for a few, Mamoru. There are hundreds if not thousands of refugee convoys en route to the handful of worlds still viable. Each of those worlds is facing wave after wave of desperate people. Some have armed ships, some not. Some estimates are that we have maybe five hundred billion souls on the move. And if they get no welcome out here - and the mood on those worlds is overwhelmingly protectionist - then you know where they'll head. The rabble-rousers have been calling for it for years.'

'The homecoming movement…' Mamoru said softly.

Con Jones perched on the edge of the desk, ignoring his captain's pointed glare. 'But where are they getting all the ships from? Surely if resources are that poor…'

'A lot are very basic transports - some little more than hollowed out asteroids with life support and a drive,' Manfred replied. 'Most of them can barely limp along fast enough to make it to the next system. A lot don't even protect the inhabitants from the IN-SKIP translation. Despite the hysteria whipped up by Mars and Earth, most of these ships won't make it. People are already dying by the millions.' Mamoru handed him a large tumbler more than half full of whiskey and he downed it in two gulps. 'Dear god, it's beyond imagining. Herise has tasked its fleet with running a rescue task force, but we're so few and space is so vast. My brothers are doing what they can - Marius with the SDF, Marcus with the Galaxy Medical Corps. Father's trying to persuade the city-worlds to come to an agreement that doesn't involve shooting anything that comes into their space. And yet I still can't believe that we're doing anything except pissing into the wind…' He sighed heavily. 'Maybe all we can do is stand in our own small corners, and hope to survive it.' He placed a long, narrow holdall he'd been carrying on the desk. 'Mamoru - you might want these. My people found them on a planet called Golgotha, just outside of an area of space contested by one of the larger conglomerates.'

Mamoru opened it slowly, and pulled out the contents reverently. A beautifully tooled leather gunbelt and holster, with a silver buckle cast in the shape of a rectangle, containing a skull and crossbones in relief. The wooden-effect butt of what looked like an antique, long barreled revolver jutted out of the top, the barrel extending well below the bottom opening. A second pistol still nestled in the bottom of the holdall. He placed the pistol and belt on the desk and reached in for the third item, whilst Con reached out next to him to pick up the gunbelt with an appreciative whistle.

'Wow… this is one of those Cosmo Dragoons?'

Mamoru, absorbed in lifting out the final item, didn't reply, and Con's mouth fell open in awe as Mamoru lifted it free, and deftly extended the collapsed barrel to its full length: a pistol-grip sabre at first glance, with a broad guard and an extending "blade" - actually the barrel of a powerful blaster rifle. 'Okay…' Con reached out a hand and ran a finger down the barrel. 'Cute - but I don't get why you'd want to make it look like a sword…'

'If I flip the controls, there's a micro-gravity field forms around the circumference and length of the blade,' Mamoru told him softly. 'Think of it acting like a monofilament - if it cuts you, you _will_ part company with whatever's on the other side of that blade, and this thing goes through the current top standard for Gaia Fleet armour. I've even seen it cut through the wing of a Cosmo Tiger.' A twist of his hand locked the blade into its full length. 'As a rifle it has a pretty short range in atmosphere - it's actually designed for use with one of the new "Valkyrie" suits Tochiro was working on with our new Nibelung friends. In space, it's actually quite devastating. The micro-gravity field concentrates the firepower and augments it…' He thumbed the power switch under the hilt and the blade flickered into life, a bluish-white lightning running down the blade.

Very quickly, Mamoru turned in back off and laid it on the desk at his side with a troubled frown marring his brow.

'Problem?' Manfred asked, never a man to miss the nuances. Rather like his father, Justinian.

'We got lucky. Someone's head would roll if their masters found out they'd let this tech slip through their fingers at some ordinary bazaar.' He met Manfred's startling blue gaze with his own and manufactured a reassuring smile. 'I think you'd better tell me a little more about this planet, and how it's connected to recent events…'

A klaxon sounded throughout the ship, piercing and shrill. Mamoru winced and made a note to stuff something in the siren located in his office. Since when did something that loud need to be placed in a room less that fifteen feet by twelve? Especially since even through the closed door he could hear the one in the corridor.

The communicator on his desk pinged almost at the same time. 'Okita.'

'Captain?' Komarova's voice. 'We're being fired on. A massive plasma bolt missed us by a whisker, passing about half a klick to starboard. They might have our range on the next one…'

'Shit.' Mamoru stood up. 'Manfred - later. Con - with me. Commander Komarova, sound general quarters. All hands to battlestations. How fast can we disengage from Manfred's ship and get between them and whatever's firing?' He was talking into his collar comm as he ran down the corridor towards the bridge, Con Jones barely a step behind.

'Three minutes to retract the anchor tube safely.'

'Maya - get on the line - tell their captain to synchronise with us, on Komarova's mark - Komarova -'

'On it, captain. Sending instructions to their computer now to co-ordinate manoeuvring thrusters.' The ship rocked slightly as she finished speaking, and he felt Con's hand on his lower back, steadying him. 'Thanks'

'De nada. That one felt a bit too close for comfort.'

'Half a klick's too damn close,' Mamoru muttered. He sprinted onto the bridge and slithered to a stop at his station. Jones dodged past him and dropped into his chair even before its previous occupant had fully cleared the station, and began running a weather eye over the data.

'Report.' Mamoru decided not to sit down. For some reason it felt far more natural to stand at the front of the bridge.

'Almost clear of the _Falcon_ ,' Maya informed him. 'They haven't got time to spin their engines back up for a jump, and are asking for assistance.'

'Can we plot a time radar trace for those energy bolts?'

'Galactic co-ordinates locked in - from the same direction both times, but we've no idea how far away the source is.' This from Jan at the weapons station. He'd been the slowpoke Con had almost sat on.

'Except there's nothing on the scanners,' Con griped. 'Even with the shit we're wading through left over from the battle, I can't find an energy signature big enough to account for the power of those blasts. The only thing out there is the gas giant at thirty AUs. That's way too far out…'

Another blast. This time the damage siren began to wail.

'That grazed our belly!' Komarova's pithy snarl on the end of that statement caused Mamoru's eyes to widen momentarily. Not the time, he supposed, to point out that his wife was half-Russian and he spoke it quite well…

'There's nothing that side either!' Con Jones' voice was rising in frustration. 'A blast that size should leave a trail lighting up the radar! There's nothing putting out a power signature big enough to account for that.'

'I've got a small signal,' Maya spoke up, her voice almost lost in the low-level grumbling. Mamoru raised a hand to quiet the rest of his bridge officers.

'Maya?'

'It's very faint, but just before each blast, I caught a tiny fluctuation in the background noise - as though a carrier signal was being sent. Very small, very brief, but it was microseconds before the blasts appeared and tracked us.'

Mamoru took the two steps to her station and leaned towards her. 'Can you boost the trace?'

'Now that I know what to look for. If they fire again.'

'Oh, they'll fire again. Komarova?'

' _Falcon_ free!' she called out. They're behind us, pulling away ready to spin…'

'Away?' He swore under his breath. 'Get them back here, tell them to get closer! The moment they leave our time radar shadow…'

This time the blast missed them, but the ship was rocked by a secondary explosion. The blast shields on the viewing window slammed down, but not before a brief flash of light left afterimages on his vision.

His crew sat silently, shocked.

'That came from behind…' Jones looked up from his readings. 'How the hell is it moving so fast!'

Mamoru ignored the question. 'Ekaterina?'

She shook her head, her lined face grave. 'I'm sorry, captain. The _Falcon's_ gone.'

'It's not a ship.'

Mamoru was the only one who heard Maya's quiet voice. He leaned in again. 'Explain.'

'The signal - I had the computer tracking for the signature frequency just in time. It's not a ship - that was a short-burst encrypted signal, and it's in the database. It's a command to open a hyperspace gate.'

He nodded and turned to Jones. 'Hear that?'

'On it.' Jones's blond head bent over his console and his hands moved frantically over the controls. 'Now that I know what I'm looking for…' His mouth turned up into a feral grin. 'Gotcha!' Then it fell into a worried frown. 'Oh, fuck…'

'You're not military, are you?' Komarova asked him drily.

'Stow it, grandma. This is bad. I'm picking up over a dozen small hypergates in our vicinity - part of a spherical formation. And there are several others in another layer beyond them… kinda like an onion, bigger and fewer the further out you get. We're in the kill-zone.'

'Kill zone for what?' This from Jan, who'd pulled off his gloves and was wiping his hands on his pants legs.

'Remember I said the only thing out there was the gas giant?' Con began.

Mamoru didn't wait for the rest. 'Montoya-'

'Aye aye, captain!' their navigator was already moving the ship as fast as he could, the drives having been spinning up since Mamoru had first called the crew to battlestations. 'Thirty seconds!'

'Gas giant?' Jan asked, more to the room than anyone in particular. He looked scared, but Mamoru couldn't take the time to reassure him just yet. He headed for his chair.

'Brace for emergency jump!'

'Those plasma blasts - the plasma had to come from somewhere,' he heard Maya tell the youth.

'Oh.' Then. 'I guess we can't take out a planet, can we?'

'Not even with these weapons,' Mamoru muttered.

'New bolt launched and running!' Komarova called out. 'Five, four, three…'

The _Deathshadow_ shook from stem to stern as she entered IN-Space.

* * *

 **Dis**

Tochiro stood against the wall of their cell with his arms folded, and glared down at his companion, slumped bonelessly in a corner with his head down, his chin almost resting on the one knee he had raised. From time to time he tapped his foot on the floor, but the effect was somewhat ruined by the fact that socks tend to muffle agitation. And his thick glasses would have ruined the disapproving glare even if the subject of them had been actually paying him any attention, instead of wallowing in his own self-pity.

'Are you just gonna sit there all day?'

Silence.

'Why, yes, Tochiro, I am. I'm a spoilt, self-centred, wangsting brat who's wallowing in guilt because I did my usual trick of just jumping into a fight without thinking about anyone other than myself, and now one friend just had his face blown off, and another's going to be lobotomised.' Pause. 'You know, I'd never have guessed. You're taking it so well. I'd better join you then, coz there doesn't seem to be any other option, does there?'

Harlock's head came up and Tochiro met the muted fury in a bloodshot gaze without flinching. 'Fuck. Off,' came the snarled reply in answer to his mockery.

'If it gets you off your lazy arse and gets your head back into the game, I'll keep going until Judgement Day,' Tochiro informed him breezily, his tone deliberately light. Inside, he was close to just storming over into that corner and giving his friend a shoulder to cry on. Except that didn't help anyone. Not them, not Khalsa… not the problem of Alexi-fucking-Nevich showing up… When Harlock got like this, he generally needed a bloody good thump to get him moving again, not sympathy.

'Game?' Harlock's head snapped up a little higher and his mouth compressed into a grim, disapproving line. Good. It was working… just needed to get him a little madder...

'You're a sore loser, you know. Always have been. And you've never liked anyone taking your toys away. But you didn't used to be such a drip. Sheesh. It's like marriage and fatherhood have emasculated you, these days. Then again, you've not done much of the latter, have you? You spend so little time at home I hear that Stefan's started calling Mamoru "papa". Almost makes you wonder if he's taking over any other duties - I mean, Maya's young, beautiful, and left all alone in that cold, draughty castle for months on end… I mean, how long can a girl fancy the bad boy for when she has such a pillar of the community around as an example? He's handsome, intelligent, rich, can speak in entire paragraphs…'

'Shut. The. Fuck. Up.' At least, that's what it sounded like. It could also just have been a growled threat to rip his head off.

'And he's just so damn _nice_. I mean - people actually like _him…'_

'Tochiro…'

Ignoring the warning tone, he carried on: 'You know, if he hadn't resigned his commission, he'd have been the better captain… I mean, _he'd_ never have gotten caught with his pants down at El Alamein, now would he?' He dodged the attack when it came, remarkably agile for such a stout frame. Ducking under Harlock's outstretched arm, a short, sharp jab to the solar plexus dropped the taller man to the ground, and once there, it never took Tochiro long to sit on him.

But then again, it wasn't as if Harlock's heart was in this fight. 'Finally,' he muttered into his friend's ear. 'Are you ready to actually listen to reason now and pull your fat head out of your ass?'

'You're an asshole.'

'Yeah, but I'm your assh-' he broke off suddenly and giggled. 'Yeah. Maybe not. We get enough of that back home… and you are sooooo not my type.'

'Just get off me. You're putting on weight.'

Tochiro scrambled off and held out a helping hand. 'Well one of us has to - you stopped eating properly weeks ago.' The pair slumped against the wall, legs outstretched, staring at the door. 'This goes back even before Tiamat, doesn't it? You've been avoiding the subject for months…'

Harlock sighed and placed his head against the wall with a thump. 'You were tied up on Titan with the Nibelung delegation, sorting out the treaty. Sanada co-opted the _Yukikaze_ for a fast reconnaissance of a fleet we'd heard was massing near Beta Orionis. It was just a small taskforce, led by a Commodore MacKenzie.'

Tochiro gave his friend a sharp look, but Harlock's eyes were fixed on the opposite wall. 'I remember. Dad wasn't too happy about it, but Shiro Sanada was adamant he wanted someone independent. You all kind of clammed up afterwards…'

'Because MacKenzie opened fire the moment we detected the ships. There was an SDF escort with them, and they retaliated. It was a bloodbath - only the _Yukikaze_ and the _Medusa_ got away.' His voice trailed into silence. When he spoke again it was stronger, and laden with disgust. 'MacKenzie had been adamant that Rigel was too close a staging post to Earth - less than 900 light years. The rest of us had no choice but to fire back when the SDF engaged - but that opening salvo had taken out a lot of the ships, and we soon realised that they weren't military. It was a staging point for a group of civilian transports that had gotten into trouble. The SDF had been trying to repair them and move them on to safety.' He fell silent again.

'Just like Tiamat,' Tochiro whispered sadly.

'Smaller scale, yes, but the same set-up. The intel had been manufactured - someone had wanted us out there, and deliberately manipulated a trigger-happy moron into command. We were well outside our jurisdiction, and had no right to engage. It was a slaughter. When those transports blew there were bodies and body parts everywhere… they didn't have a chance. I saw children…'

Tochiro couldn't think of anything to say to fill the awkward, painful silence. He'd seen it with his own eyes at Tiamat, after all. He just hadn't realised that for Harlock, it wasn't the first time. 'You didn't say anything when you got back… why…'

'Admit to the people I love that _I_ fired on those ships as well?' He slammed his fist against the wall behind him and Tochiro winced. 'I followed orders. Just like I was supposed to, and didn't bother to look first to see what I was aiming at. And I'm supposed to do what after that? Go home, smile at my wife, bounce my sons and my nieces on my knee and pretend I didn't see the frozen, broken bodies of children just like them drifting past and bouncing off my viewscreen? Listen to Mamoru being all supportive and sympathetic and trying to be all wonderfully _understanding_ and "nice"?' He was snarling the words by the time he'd paused for breath.

'So that's why you've been avoiding shore leave? And we were in an all-fire hurry to get to Sanada at Tiamat?' Tochiro sighed. 'You should have _told_ me. We're a _team…'_

'Someone's trying to escalate this. I thought if we could get there in time, stop another massacre…' Harlock's head drooped again, but this time as much from exhaustion as depression. 'It didn't do any good, did it? Both we and the SDF were suckered into a killing field.'

Tochiro frowned. 'Yeah… about that. I didn't really get much of a chance to see what was going on out there - too busy trying to hold the shields up with spit and string under that console… how come our retreat ended up with both sides in the same "safe zone"?'

Harlock shrugged wearily. 'Beats me. Could be El Alamein is just a convenient way point from Tiamat… but someone was waiting for us - those bolts came out of nowhere. Before we lost sensors and comms in that second volley, I couldn't see anything. There were no ships on the scanners.'

Tochiro's frown deepened into a scowl. 'Huh. That's what Lizzie Michaelides said when you were out cold after those scavengers showed up. The SDF were as much in the dark as we were. She said it was some heavy-duty plasma fire, came out of nowhere.' He paused, then thumped Harlock lightly on the arm. 'Hey - you know, she said you did good - if we hadn't come shrieking into the middle of that clusterfuck, those ships she was guarding would have taken far more losses than they did. She couldn't figure out why the hell an Earth Alliance ship was yelling on all frequencies to pull back and cease fire at its own side, mind you.'

'Our side?' Harlock's lip lifted in a sneer. 'You still think there are sides in this?'

Tochiro shrugged. 'Maybe all we can do is just protect our own?'

'Isn't that what got us into this mess?' Harlock asked acidly. 'That's what our beloved government keeps telling us, everytime it chips away at our freedom. There are days I wish we could just take our ship and head out into the black, and never look back. Out there is the only place I still feel any kind of peace…'

Tochiro couldn't reply to that, and bit his lip to avoid saying something he shouldn't. Some things you just can't say to a friend and still stay friends… Instead, he decided to change the subject, before Harlock lapsed into another funk. 'Hey - what say you we make a start on doing some damage on our way out of this place?' he said brightly.

'Out?' Harlock snorted. 'Are you off your tree?'

'Au contraire,' Tochiro replied smugly. 'I have a plan, and it kind of needs you to be on your A game. You in?'

'A plan.'

'U-huh.'

'To get out of a secure facility located deep underground…'

'Well if you're going to get all sniffy..'

'On a desert planet out in the middle of nowhere…'

'Details, details!' he waved a hand around vaguely.

'Which has a constant windspeed that would make a hurricane weep and dust storms that can strip the skin and flesh off a man's bones in a matter of minutes if he's unprotected…'

'Well it won't be _easy_ ,' Tochiro replied cheekily. 'But as I said. I have a plan. Unless you'd rather sit here on your over-upholstered aristocratic backside and feel sorry for yourself?' He weathered the resulting glare with a mild, deliberately shit-eating smile. 'Thought not. Now, we just need out of this cell, and to get to the communications suite.'

'Just, he says… And how are we supposed to do that, without tools or weapons?'

Tochiro heaved a theatrical sigh. 'Oh ye of little faith. As it happens whilst you were butting heads with the constabulary, I managed in my own travails - and trust me, I think I can still taste the earwax - to lift a few necessaries…' he held up a small card-key and a tiny flashlight. 'With this, I can fix the electronic lock on the cell door.'

'Not without a knife to strip that wire, you won't.'

Tochiro held up one of the flint blades. 'Thankfully, since our host was caught knapping…'

Harlock cuffed him around the head for that one. 'That was bad, even for you. But once we've gotten as far as the communications room, what the hell do you plan on doing after that?'

Tochiro had already shuffled over to the door and was using the light from the corridor shining through its window to help him create his electromagnetic strip. 'You mean after we use it to - oh - call for help?'

Harlock glared at him.

Tochiro grinned. 'Well… that's where you come in. You know - one of your scream and leap fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants moments of brilliance would come in handy about now…'

Harlock got up and stood next to his friend, looming over him. ' _That's_ your plan - your _great_ plan - you leave the details to _me_?'

'You're in my light!' Tochiro complained, giving him a totally useless shove.

'You're off your rocker,' Harlock replied frostily. The door slid open and he stuck his head out, quickly checking up and down the corridor - little more than a rough-hewn tunnel. 'Give me the knife,' he ordered, plucking it out of Tochiro's fingers without waiting for a reply.

Grinning from ear to ear, Tochiro followed him into the empty tunnel. 'Ooh!' he called out as they walked. 'Boots. If nothing else, we need boots.' He cursed as he stubbed his toe on a lump of rock for the second time in ten seconds.

'You have socks at least,' Harlock growled at him. 'It's more than _some_ of us have.'

'Want mine?' he asked gaily as they walked. He bit back a snigger at the way Harlock's shoulders tensed and shuddered at the thought. Then he caught sight of the bloody scratches and bruises on his friend's soles as he walked, and fell silent, suddenly sobered.


	8. Chapter 8

_**Dis**_

'There are no doors…'

Tochiro stared at the far end of the hangar they stood in, and peered at the solid wall about a hundred yards from where they stood. He had to agree with his friend's assessment: apart from the small person-sized door they'd come in by (now safely locked and the mechanism disabled), there was no way out of the hangar, either for humans, or for the three massive cigar shaped vehicles parked on the sandy floor.

'Maybe they raise the entire wall?' he offered, without much conviction. He wondered how long it would take Harlock to realise he'd just locked the two of them in here with no way back into the base until their captors brought out the heavy cutting gear.

'Can you see anything on the ceiling or on the walls which would lift or slide them?'

Since the ceiling and walls were smooth, unadorned rock, that would be a big, honking "no".

The floor, however… Tochiro prodded it with a booted toe, thanking his lucky stars they'd found a changing room for the masked men along the way. They now both wore the shit-brown uniform of the guards, but at least they had boots. And gloves.

His steel-capped toe sank into the sand a short way before hitting a metal gantry with a clang. 'The floor seems to be metal. Which is odd. Surely it would be rock, if this was a cave?' He knelt down for a closer look, but Harlock tapped him on the shoulder before he could start scraping away the sand.

'I'll check that out - you take a look at those machines over there. I can't see any external weapons or cutting gear on them. They've no wheels or tracks, or wings. If they're our way out of here, I'm not sure what the fuck they do.'

Tochiro took the proffered hand and let Harlock haul him to his feet. Peering at the dull grey hulls, he frowned. 'You know - you have a point…' He sauntered over towards the nearest vehicle, hands in pockets.

His frown deepened as he wandered around the thing. It sat in a depression in the flooring - still covered in the ubiquitous sand, but now he could see it was a docking cradle extending from a mesh gantry sitting several feet above the actual floor of the cavern. The vehicle was actually streamlined - more like a submarine than a spaceship. About a hundred and fifty feet long, maybe seventy, seventy five from keel to top of conning tower, most of which was below floor level. Most of that length was taken up by an odd drive system - something of a cross between a sealed jet engine and a propellor.

He stripped off a glove with his teeth and laid his hand on the hull. It felt slick - not oily, but frictionless - the resistance of a solid surface was there, but he couldn't feel metal, or ceramic, or any combination thereof.

And the whole thing seemed to be emitting a low hum. 'Huh.' He glanced back at Harlock, who was unfolding his long legs and getting to his feet. 'The floor's just a mesh, right?' he called back.

'Light covering of this sand, but underneath it looks as though the floor is sand. I stuffed a pole I found down it - it must be several feet deep.' Harlock walked over to join him. 'Well? If we're going to get out of here before the cavalry arrive to let us back into the building you conveniently locked us out of, this looks like the only way…'

Tochiro strolled over towards a ladder bolted onto the side, and looked up. 'I think it's a sand-sub,' he said thoughtfully. He grabbed the railings and began to climb, grinning as he heard Harlock following him.

Once they both stood on the deck, their boots making a better contact with that surface than his hand had, thankfully, he made his way towards the expected hatch.

'Sand sub…' Harlock's tone conveyed very little in the way of emotion, but he could make out the underlying question.

'It's covered in a frictionless QT field,' Tochiro explained as he wrestled with the wheel on the hatch. 'Get this, would you?' He stood aside to let Harlock turn it, and pull the circular hatch open. Another ladder led down into the bowels of the machine. 'A quantum field - once at full strength, it allows this thing to move through sands - or even some loose aggregates - as if they were water. I'd heard they were being tested, but had no idea anyone had gotten them working.' He vanished into the inner workings of the sub, leaving Harlock to follow in his wake.

He'd barely gone ten yards into the interior before he heard a thud, a pained grunt, and another, heavier thud. The sound of six and a half feet of fleet captain hitting first the ceiling cross-struts and then the floor.

'Oh - mind your head!' he called out. 'I think the crossbars are a bit low!'

When he didn't hear the expected pithy reply, he trotted back up the tiny corridor, to see Harlock slumped against the wall, one hand held to his forehead. The ship was lit only by its red emergency strip lighting, but he could see something dripping between his friend's fingers onto the floor at his feet from the point where he was clutching his forehead. 'Oh. Shit. Are you okay?' He reached out a hand only to have it slapped away with a growl.

'I'm fine - scalp wounds bleed like a bitch. Did you not think to warn me?'

'Did you not think that head room might be a problem?' Tochiro snapped back, feeling more than a little cross. And guilty as charged since he'd strolled under them easily and so not really paid any attention. 'You've always been a lanky bastard - do I have to do _all_ your thinking for you?' He reached again for Harlock's generally hard head and prised his fingers away. 'You'll have a lump, but the cut's shallow. Should stop bleeding soon.' He fished around in his borrowed pockets, and found a wad of tissue paper he'd stuffed in it earlier. 'Here, use this.'

'As long as it's not used,' Harlock muttered ungraciously as he neatened the crumpled wad into a flat one and used it to mop up the bleeding.

'Eww. And you're welcome, you grumpy bugger. Now can we get a move on before they think to look for us here?'

'If they haven't already.' Harlock allowed Tochiro to help him to his feet. 'Don't they have closed circuit?'

'Not so much,' Tochiro informed him, taking the lead again, Harlock following behind far more cautiously this time. 'The workers are drugged and pretty compliant, the masked men are to all intents and purposes lobotomised, and these things would appear to be the only way out of the base and back to wherever the beanstalk is - and by the way, I strongly suspect that's in a deep valley somewhere, protected by a force field. It'd be the only way - cover the valley, and just extend the field around the stalk to get into orbit. We definitely came down in a cargo car, not a ship.'

'They must have gotten ships down here at one point,' Harlock pointed out. He ducked to avoid another low beam as Tochiro took a sharp right at a crossroads.

'Probably still do - it'd be the best spot for a small spaceport. You could withstand the sandstorms for a couple of hours in a ship. It's ground and aircraft that suffer. Hence - sand subs.'

'And yet,' Harlock muttered, helping him with yet another hatch wheel. 'Watertight doors?'

'Airtight,' Tochiro corrected. Seriously - you would not want to lose your internal atmosphere down there.' He frowned. 'You really did give your head a knock, didn't you?'

'I'm also tired and my fucking feet hurt,' Harlock replied testily. 'Can you get this thing running?'

'If I do can you fly it?'

They glared at each other for a moment, then Harlock laughed weakly. 'Fine. Touché…' They stumbled over the raised edge of the opening, and into the bridge.

Tochiro wasted no time in scuttling over to the array of consoles facing forward. 'Simple enough to operate,' he called back over his shoulder. So long as you don't hit the dock on the way out.'

'Once,' Harlock ground out, glaring at his friend's back. 'That was _once_ … it was barely a scrape, and who was it who built the docking cradle two inches too close to the hull?' He didn't bother replying to the handwave aimed casually in his direction, but headed for what looked as though it ought to be the helmsman's station. 'Can we operate this with only two people?'

'I can handle the sonar and power. If we need weapons we might struggle. Steering and nav will be your area. Looks as though we can automate the rest for now.'

'Assuming you can get it started…'

'Patience, Albrecht, this isn't like hotwiring a hover car…' Tochiro vanished under the console, his backside sticking into the air and wriggling as he worked.

'Don't. Call. Me That. You sound like Mamoru.'

'Then stop being a dick,' came the muffled reply. 'Oh - I can patch the comms into their warp link from here! Makes up for not being able to find their warp radio room earlier.'

Harlock took his seat and began to scan the controls with an expert eye. The cut on his forehead had stopped bleeding, but the lock of hair that permanently threatened to cover his right eye was stiff with dried blood, and it itched. He tried to push it out of the way and grimaced as sticky, drying blood stuck to his fingers. He sighed, and gave up. 'What good will it do? No-one will be looking for us. If Tiamat was bad, El Alamein was worse. Those plasma bolts were wiping out everything they touched. There's no way the rest of the fleet could have gotten away - or if they did, they'd never come back to check to see if we survived.'

'Maybe not,' Tochiro replied as he back out from underneath the console with an awkward wriggle. 'But you know - I've been running that whole mess over and over in my head…'

'You too, huh? We assumed there was a dreadnought class ship out there, but that doesn't account for how fucking _fast_ it was - and how did the SDF get hold of anything that big? All our intel suggests that they'd put their money into battleship class ships at most. Dreadnoughts are just too lumbering, too expensive and apart from planetary defence, no fucking use in a fight except as a big target.'

'I didn't get a single echo back.' Tochiro fiddled with the controls, and the bridge lit up, followed by the various work stations. Including Harlock's position. 'And either there was more than one ship of that size - which is bloody unlikely - or something else was going on. No one ship can recycle that fast with capital guns.' He paused, turned and grinned at Harlock. 'Except one of _our_ new babies, when they're built… But what if it wasn't a ship?' He jabbed a finger towards Harlock's console. 'Try it now - we'll have to cold start the engines but what the hell - we won't be keeping this thing.'

A vibrating hum ran through the length of the ship a few seconds later. Tochiro gave a thumbs up. 'Nice, even if I do say so myself. Now gently, aim her down and forward. Ease her out until we know where we're going.'

'That would be the heads up display behind you,' Harlock pointed out in a voice loaded with sarcasm. 'There's a standard INS, linked to a UGM system, and what looks like a pretty detailed subterranean navigation aid. The sand's deep - maybe a hundred metres, but there are still some large sandstone outcroppings if I'm reading the gravity fluctuations correctly. Pay attention. There's an access tunnel - a lot like a submarine docking tube.'

'Watch the sides,' Tochiro told him. He weathered the glare with a cheeky grin. 'There's a reason I wanted to give your new ship a self-repair system, after all,' he added chirpily.

'One bloody prang and I'm never living it down?' Harlock grumped at him as he frowned at the controls. 'Ah - depth and angle. Bloody hell, this thing handles like a cow…'

'Five spaceships, six motorcycles, three hover cars, two fighters, one helicopter, three bicycles, and two horses. That's only the ones you were in charge of at the time, not collateral damage. Quite a score for saying you're only twenty-seven.' Tochiro grabbed for a convenient railing as the sub lurched downwards.

'Twenty-eight,' Harlock corrected through clenched teeth. 'If you're intent on being _so_ particular about my failings, you forgot that camel in Marrakesh. And for the record, I didn't write off _everything_ in that list. _And_ three of those ships were prototypes with structural problems - or aren't we counting _your_ fuck-ups?' The sub lurched again, and Tochiro grabbed the arms of the engineer's chair.

'Can we not add one sand submarine to the list?' Tochiro asked plaintively. 'I have a wife and two gorgeous daughters who adore me back home, you know…'

'I don't know. Apparently I can't handle anything without breaking it,' Harlock snapped back. The sub levelled out as it descended. 'A hundred feet down and fifty forward. This tunnel's tight - what's my clearance?'

'Almost free of the hangar. - oh, crap! No wonder this place wasn't guarded! Slow down! There's a gate on this thing - fifty yards, dead ahead!'

'A bit late now!' Harlock scanned the console with an expert eye. 'Well - they'll know we've left…' he muttered. He reached for the firing button.

'Harlock…' Tochiro's warning came too late. Two torpedoes streaked forward on the scanner, and the sub was rocked both physically and audibly by the resulting explosion a couple of seconds later. Warning lights and sirens went off lighting up the bridge like a festival.

Harlock, shaking his head to try and clear his ears, pushed the throttle forwards. There wasn't much point in saying anything, and he wasn't sure he wanted to know what Tochiro was yelling soundlessly at him whilst counterpointing every barely audible screech by flailing his arms around. And since subtlety just went out of the window, that left speed.

Keeping a weather eye on the gravimeters and his terrain charts, he eased the sub forward in the direction of the spaceport.

* * *

Victor had to resist the temptation to flatten the black-suited dandy standing in front of him waving his arms around. Three-quarter length jackets just restricted movement, and tinted spectacles - especially _violet_ tinted spectacles - were just an affectation too far. Especially when combined with long hair and a lariat tie. 'Stop flapping about and screeching like a fishwife,' he snapped at Nevich. 'Where the bloody hell do you think they're going? The only place out there remotely useful is the spaceport. And they won't get into that without the codes.'

'They just blew the fucking doors off your sandlock or whatever the hell you call it. What's to stop them from doing the same at the other end - or destroying the port?'

'Firstly, the spaceport is protected by three locks, and they only have two missiles left. The sand subs aren't intended for battle - the torpedoes are for terrain clearance underground. Secondly they'd be even more stupid than you are if they destroy their only way off the planet. Relax, Alexei - they've nowhere to go. The subs can't stay submerged for more than two days, they're easy to track from the seismic disturbance and from their QT fields, and they're provisioned for only three days with food and water. Admittedly that will last longer with two men rather than ten, but the limit is still the air, and the power drain. The longer they stay under and using the QT field, the faster the power runs out. And when it does, so does life support.'

Nevich glared at him like a sulky child denied a toy. 'But until you've repaired the hangar exit from the damage they did getting out, you can't chase them.'

Victor shrugged, and pushed his way past the annoying creep. The sooner this damn "war" was over and inferior specimens such as Nevich and his son-in-law were confined to their place in the new order, the happier he'd be. 'Another six hours, at most.' _Which bit of "nowhere to go…" do you keep missing…?_ He tapped into the comms system via his earpiece. 'Processing - have you started preparing that young man I sent down earlier?'

'He's ready for masking,' the tech on the other end replied. 'Shaved and sedated. Why, sir?'

Victor smiled in Nevich's direction, enjoying the way the man flinched and dropped his purple-tinted gaze. 'Keep him sedated, but send him back to holding.' He cut the transmission. 'And if our young Harlock and his stunted genius get bored waiting for a rescue that won't come, I've got something here they want. Very, very badly if Harlock fancies himself the hero I think he does.'

Nevich snorted. 'Oh trust me, he does. Runs in the family. They both think they're so much better than the rest of us.'

Victor tapped his bottom lip lightly. 'The bastard half-brother… Funny you should mention him…' He called up the footage on screen which had recently been sent from the unmanned satellites around El Alamein. 'The test site for the Plasma ejection system sent this earlier - an incursion by two ships, one of which - a courier from the colonies - was destroyed. Seemed a shame not to test fire whilst there was something worth aiming at. The other ship might have just skipped as the shot reached it. The resolution is poor, so it's been difficult to tell. However I prefer to err on the side of caution, and assume it escaped.'

Nevich peered at the blurred image, and reached out to trace the outline with a finger, lingering over the curved horns of the bow. 'Admiral class,' he sneered. 'Hardly worth worrying about. They were all scrapped two years ago, and the armaments were never top spec.'

Victor smiled widely. 'And it seems I know more about the goings-on in your home system than you do, Alexei. The speed this ship showed evading the plasma arcs was quite astonishing - at least until you factor in that our spies tell me that this ship is one of three given back to Arcadia Engineering to use as prototype testing platforms for some new technology, and set sail from the Grape Valley drydock several days ago under the command of that bastard half-brother…'

Nevich's head jerked slightly at that, and Victor relished the way the blood drained from the man's face. Inwardly he held back what would have been a most unseemly snigger. 'Problem?' he asked lightly.

'Nothing I can't handle,' Nevich growled, scowling at the screen.

Victor silently begged leave to differ, and called up the relevant file. A head and shoulders hologramme of a handsome man in his thirties or early forties popped up above the projector. Sandy haired, handsome and his hazel eyes had a slightly exotic trace of an epicanthic fold. Despite the picture being an official identification headshot, the corners of his generous mouth - so like his younger brother's, Victor thought, seemed to be a mere breath away from turning up into what would be a friendly smile, and his eyes held a warmth even in effigy that the brother's darker eyes lacked.

But it wasn't, he thought, a _soft_ face… Judging from the tight-lipped frown on Nevich's thin face and the story he'd heard about the run-ins these two families had had over the past few years, this was something Nevich appeared to have forgotten: that _nice_ didn't equal _pushover_ … 'Really?' was all he replied out loud. 'Because according to his file, he's very highly thought of by the Gaia Admiralty - they've tried to head-hunt him several times since this "war" began. Short of breaking their current rules on conscription however, he's out of their reach, for now. Luckily for you, eh, Alexei? This one's a family man…'

'He loves his wife and daughters to distraction. It makes him weak and vulnerable,' Nevich snapped. 'A man who allows himself to let emotions like that rule him can be easily broken.'

Victor shut down the display and turned away slightly to hide his sneer. _You understand nothing_ , he thought, contemptuous of the fool standing close by. _A man who has something so precious to him in his heart is far more dangerous than one without… he'll fight not only until the last drop of your blood, but you'll have to kill him to stop him_. And even _that_ might not be enough… He took a deep breath and let it out slowly, schooling his face into its habitual neutral amiability before he let himself look at Nevich again. 'That might be interesting to put to the test,' he replied calmly.

Nevich snorted again, and Victor almost asked him if he needed a nosebag. 'He'll never find out where you've taken his brother even if he does find out the survivors were taken. Would he?'

Victor shrugged. 'The trail would be hard to find, but not impossible. The trick will be ensuring his baby brother doesn't manage to get a message out via the warp tower at the spaceport.' He glanced at his wrist watch. 'It'll take him several hours to travel there, and they're on alert. We'll follow in about five hours, once the exit is cleared and I can send the other two subs to intercept - unless of course he decides to simply turn back to try and rescue his man.'

'And you'll be doing what exactly whilst the rest of us are kicking our heels awaiting your pleasure?'

Victor strode briskly to the door. 'Relaxing, my dear Alexei. Something you should learn to do. Your shoulders really are too tense. Perhaps I could send you a young lady to take your mind off things?'

'Thank you, but no.' Nevich's tone was decidedly icy.

Victor shrugged. 'Perhaps a young man then? I do have a sandy-haired youth you might…'

'No!'

Victor's mouth twitched at the obvious disgust the man loaded into one short syllable. He allowed himself a theatrical sigh and left the room with the tiniest bow that the high command would have permitted him to give the effete fool. _For now we might need your contacts and your toys, Nevich… but not for much longer_. He smiled as the door shut behind him. Nevich's son in law, Zone, was a little more promising, and Alexei Nevich might find himself struggling once that young man realised where the real power lay.

For now, however, he had several hours to waste and it did no one any good to spend them wittering about things he couldn't change, couldn't hurry along and couldn't improve.

He thumbed his communicator as he walked. 'Fifty-seven? Please ask Captain Michaelides if she'll be kind enough to join me for dinner.'

* * *

Spartan, yet still comfortable. That was Elizabeth's opinion of Victor Harken's quarters. For an operation on a planet where everything had to be shipped in, she supposed luxuries to be at a premium, but within that restriction, Victor Harken did very well for himself. A large screen doubled as a window on one wall, with scenery changing every fifteen minutes or so. The furniture was simple and lightweight, but well made and elegant. Upholstery and bed sheets were reasonably expensive, practical and attractive, but overall nothing gave the impression that it was anything that couldn't be left behind if required. The same appeared to be true of his wardrobe when she opened it. This was a man who knew the value of appearances, liked his creature comforts, and although he probably could flout the rules and import whatever he damn well pleased, he chose not to.

All in all, it sent a message she received loud and clear. The same practical hedonism undoubtedly extended to the women he kept. The screwed-silly tarts she'd been bunked with all agreed that he was an attentive and talented lover, but took care not to get attached.

What was more interesting however was that there were no signs that he worked here. This was his private room, where he ate, slept, fucked and did whatever else occupied his time. So in addition to not being able to find anything she could break into or hack for information, she was left wondering what the point of this message was when there was no-one who would ever see it.

Food had been left on a service trolley, and wine decanted on the small table laid for dinner for two. Since there didn't seem to be much point in standing on ceremony, and she rather suspected she'd deal a lot better with the evening's schedule if she made a head start on getting nicely hammered, she poured a large glass of the red and sat down on one of the nicely cushioned dining chairs to wait for her "host".

She didn't have long to wait. The door slid open almost silently to admit her captor, already shedding his jacket, which he tossed casually onto the chair beside his bed. He followed this up by undoing his cuffs, rolling up his sleeves and reaching for his collar to unfasten it with a sigh of relief.

'Do try to slow down taking your clothes off,' Elizabeth told him dryly as she refilled her glass. 'I don't recall agreeing to anything beyond dinner.'

He stopped at the third button of his shirt with a devastating smile that, under most other circumstances, she might have even found endearing. 'I can defer to delicate sensibilities when required,' he murmured. He reached for a glass, eyed the decanter up for a moment, and when she looked him in the eye and silently wished him to hell instead of pouring for him, shrugged, reached for it and filled his own glass.

'Delicate isn't something I've been accused of in recent years,' she snapped. 'I think you overestimate your charms.'

He sat opposite her across the dinner table, and leaned back in his seat. He sipped delicately at his wine, savouring the mouthful. A small drop beaded on his bottom lip, and the tip of his tongue swept it out of sight. The gesture was so deliberately suggestive she almost choked on her next swallow. 'Perhaps - or is the real problem the power dynamic? Tell me honestly - if we met in a bar on say - Destiny - would you be averse to letting me buy you a drink? Or going home with me later?'

She glared at him through narrowed eyes. 'We aren't on Destiny, this isn't a bar, and no matter how nice you pretend to be, at the end of the day, I'm a prisoner, and you hold all the cards.'

He took another sip. 'True. But why not be civilised about it?'

'Civilised? A silk-lined cage is still a cage, and sweet words can still be still duress, since I'm the one with a chip in their head as a guarantee of compliance…'

'Of good behaviour,' he corrected. 'I told you I wouldn't use it to force you into my bed. And to correct you on another point, no, you're not the only one. Here.' He turned around and held down the back of his collar so that she could see his neck, the pale skin dusted with light gold hairs.

At the base of his skull, two small scars were visible. He turned back to face her. 'We all have them. Implanted along with our first inoculations as children.'

She stared at him, her mouth dry, and nibbled on her bottom lip as she processed this new titbit. 'Your government does this to you?'

'We're more of a family-run corporation. Although we do own and operate several planetary systems. Ah. You think it monstrous? It makes sense really. Those us us who are perfectly willing to work within the system have nothing to fear. Rebels however… but then, rebels make _everyone's_ life more difficult. Rather like would-be heroes…' this time the glass was emptied in one graceless swallow. He smiled coldly over the rim before he placed it on the table so carefully she had the impression he'd much rather have given in to temptation and thrown it against the wall.

'The alarms I heard earlier?' she asked, deciding pressing for information couldn't hurt.

'Your chivalrous young friends causing trouble. Your lanky oversized Earth-born captain and his annoying engineer. Though what they hope to achieve…'

'Freedom, I suspect,' she replied rather more bluntly than was possibly prudent. But the look on his face was priceless, and she felt like raising a glass in salute to the two Gaia officers. It might be their damn fault she'd been captured, but getting up this elitist snob's nose like this was no small feat and it suggested a few ideas of her own...

'Freedom? To do what exactly? Run around in one of my prototype QT subs until it runs out of power?' He snorted. 'They have nowhere to go and no-one to call for help. They can't hope to achieve anything by this rebellion. In a couple of hours we'll be able to follow them, and at that point, they'll cease to be a problem. What will they gain?'

'Perhaps it's enough to rebel. And get right up your nose in the process,' she pointed out boldly. 'I'd call that a win…' She reached for one of the covered dishes. 'If it's put you off your dinner however, I hope you won't mind if I start without you…?'

She held her breath, waiting for an explosive response. This wasn't a man you wanted to bait too far, despite his affable demeanour. But she thought she had the measure of him. His furniture alone spoke of someone who liked to think he could walk away from anything, but believed in keeping up appearances - even in private. It was as much a mask as the metal encasing his underlings' faces, and existed she suspected for much the same reason. Control. She watched his face carefully over a fork of fluffy creamed potatoes, wondering if he'd let it slip, even for a moment. In doing so she had to admit one fact however unwillingly. He really was magnificent to look at. The pointed tips of his ears gave him a slightly exotic air, and in all honesty she'd always had a weakness for blonds. Although, if he was a few years older and not fighting on the wrong side, that tall Gaia Fleet captain looked good enough to eat… as long as he kept that too gorgeous mouth shut. The man had a personality you could break rocks on… there was stoic, and then there was downright anti-social. Still, she might prefer tall dark and grumpy to tall blond and all too sure of himself.

Inwardly, she smiled. Tall dark and antisocial had definitely gotten under her gaoler's skin, that was for sure. He was pushing his food around his plate and kept checking his watch.

It bothered her suddenly that she couldn't remember that captain's name. He'd pulled her and her crew off their dying ship one step ahead of its total scuppering, only to be captured in turn by the raiders who'd shown up all too quickly after the battle. Who did that? His ship could have gotten away if he'd left them behind. They _had_ been shooting at each other only hours before, after all.

She owed him. Big time. Wasn't his fault the rescue had gone south.

They'd been brought down to the surface via beanstalk. Presumably the location was protected from the storms which blasted the planet continually. Made sense if the lad had any brains they'd head back there. Maybe try to make contact with anyone who's listening. Didn't have to be his own side… he'd proven already that he was the kind of man who did the right thing. No matter the personal cost.

She couldn't fight Victor the way she'd been taught in the SDF. He'd seen to that. But she did have the weapons nature had so generously endowed her with. Victor Harken was obviously stalling for time and looking for a distraction. Basic logic suggested a long tall drink of sex appeal was the reason. _Bravo, handsome_ … _but it seems a shame to waste your effort_. Maybe however there was some small favour she could do. It wasn't giving them much of a chance, true, but to do _something_ \- however small - had to be better than sitting on her muscular arse waiting for pretty pointy-tips to stop playing the gracious host and get down to business.

She stood up, pushing her chair back out of the way and taking a short walk to stare at the fake window across the room, currently showing a tranquil forest next to a mountain lake. Not too fast… _He'll smell a rat if you cave in too quickly…_ However this one saw himself as the hero in his own story, she was sure of that. And _that_ , she could use. _If you can't choose your battleground, you can at least choose your weapons..._

'Elizabeth?' As she predicted, her "host" was so solicitous when she sighed deeply and took a deep drink. She squared her shoulders as though steeling herself before giving him a deliberately brittle smile when he placed a hand on her shoulder. _Condescending prick… that's "Captain Michaelides" to you..._

'Nothing,' she replied with that defiant false brightness her sex had perfected whilst saying the exact opposite of what they meant, and was quite proud of the little quiver she managed to put into one small word. And the one she managed to suppress when he raised a hand and stroked her cheek. She gave him her best "putting a brave face on things smile". 'Dinner's getting cold.' She made sure her walk back to the table was purposeful, the distance she put between them just enough.

 _I might not be able to buy you much time, handsome. But you'd better make damn good use of it…_

She reached for the decanter again _. It is a far, far better thing I do now…_


	9. Chapter 9

_**Deathshadow - unknown system**_

The _Deathshadow_ lurched out of IN-SKIP in a fractured storm of white light, thousands of lines reassembling into the lines of the ship in empty space, twisted and broken as though seen through the lens of a kaleidoscope. On board the ship, the occupants could only feel the effects, not see them, but the abrupt return to normal space caused havoc on the bridge. Mamoru clutched the arms of the captain's chair with white knuckled hands, and tried not to pay too much attention to the retching noises and groans coming from several points in the room. Apart from the seasoned campaigner Komarova, Jones and Maya were the only two who were spared, and even they, when he checked, both looked a little green.

Komarova called for a cleanup crew as the ship levelled out. Red lights flashed and sirens wailed, all clashing with each other and jostling for attention on almost every station.

'Status?' Mamoru asked, snapping out the request with as much authority as he could muster. The sickly sweet smell of vomit and the sour scent of urine threatened even his usually strong stomach, and he could have sworn the view on screen was displaying several colours not normally found in nature, whirling alarmingly. Alongside the assault on his other senses, the entire effect was disorientating, and the ship's gyros still hadn't quite realigned themselves with normal space. If the bridge crew were a reasonable selection, half the crew would be chucking up and a few embarrassing accidents wouldn't be unusual…

'I'm fine, if anyone cares!' Jones called out valiantly, but weakly. 'Not too sure about navigation… Montoya old man - you do know that diced carrot gets everywhere, right?'

'Sure doesn't mix with top end electrics,' Komarova replied with a cheery grin. 'You - clean up, aisle twelve!' The boilersuited maintenance techs scuttled to obey, looking barely less rough than their officers. 'Captain - reports coming in from all stations. Severe damage to the hull on all sides, but no breaches. Engineering report the drive is depleted, but functional, we just need to recharge and spin her up again. Navigation - well… she glanced over to where a sheepish Montoya was being ushered out of the way by a grinning tech. 'Since it hasn't exploded, and the feed's still coming through according to the computers, we're good to go. No location yet though - the gravitic gyros are still recalibrating after that hell-ride.'

'Communications?' Mamoru used the question as an excuse to check on his sister in law, relieved to see that Maya - although looking pale and more than a little shaken, was still at her post and holding up a lot better than some of the more space-hardened crew.

But then, most of _them_ probably had a much better idea of just how close they'd come to not emerging from that jump…

'Comms are out. I think we lost one of the antenna arrays in that last blast,' Maya reported calmly. 'We can receive, but not transmit.'

'We need to find a planet to set down on to effect repairs,' Komarova added. 'Too much damage to the hull to work on in space without a dock.'

'Are we capable of moving?'

'We can use the sub-light engines but not at full speed. And we might manage one short IN-SKIP, but after that, I wouldn't want to get into a fight…'

Mamoru rubbed his left temple and winced as the first stabbings of an ice-pick hit. 'This is my payback for twitting my brother over his tendency to wreck anything he gets behind the controls of…' he muttered. 'Make what repairs we can make from the inside,' he ordered. 'And find me somewhere to set down so we can deploy the 3-D printers. I also need a full analysis of what the hell hit us back there. Maya - you said you recognised the signal?'

She nodded. 'It had the same distortion pattern as the opening of a hyperspace gate. But there was more than one of them - microseconds before each beam hit. I had the computer begin the analysis, but the pattern is already emerging…' she called up her results on the main screen. Mamoru leaned forwards in his chair to look. 'Each blast came from a different location - but the spectrum was the same for each one, which isn't the case for a plasma bolt - every ship has a slightly different signature, like a fingerprint. These were all identical, so the inference…'

'Is a single source of plasma, launched through hyperspace gates…' Mamoru sat back heavily. 'The gas giant - it has to be…'

'That's a spectacularly nasty weapon if so,' Jones remarked acidly. 'Park a series of gates in-system, in the right places, and you could have a fast-response weapon for planetary defence in place that could protect most of a solar system…'

'It'd be a bitch to co-ordinate,' Mamoru mused. 'Keeping so many gates aligned would take a hell of a lot of power and the comms system would be vulnerable to jamming. It's smart on paper, but the logistics are a nightmare in reality. It's the kind of over-thought, over-engineered crap I'm used to seeing from a competitor of ours.'

'Zone Industries?' Maya suggested, a frown marring her brow. 'It's right up their alley, but they don't have anyone capable of pulling this off - or the resources to operate out here.'

'They might not - but we do know a man who does.' The new speaker staggered onto the bridge, holding a hand to his side. His face was bruised and bloodied, and he limped awkwardly towards Mamoru, waving off an offer of help from Maya, who'd leapt from her chair when he entered. 'Leave it, sis, I'm just a bit battered.'

'Manfred!' Mamoru inwardly breathed a sigh of relief. When the Deathshadow had jumped, he hadn't been sure if Maya's brother had made it back to his own doomed ship or not.

'This has Doppler Corp written all over it.' Manfred leaned on Mamoru's chair arm, breathing so shallowly Mamoru strongly suspected "a bit battered" was a euphemism for "I've broken a few ribs…". 'The Gaia Sanction's chief scientist, Hechi, is one of his people. We knew they were testing some seriously nasty weaponry somewhere out in the sticks, but nothing like this…'

'It's a fleet killer,' Jones snarled, his hands curling into fists. 'Ten gets you one this was what our fleet - and the colonial guys - ran into. Hell, if they were set up just to test it…'

'It's worse than that,' Mamoru broke in, his voice soft. 'It's a planet killer. Anything that can be turned outwards can be turned inwards, on a system's own population. Hell - just by moving a hyperspace gate in the network you could probably wipe out entire systems from millions of light-years away, and never once risk a ship in combat.'

You could, he thought, have heard a pin drop on the bridge as the implications sank in.

'You couldn't keep the beam on track though without a gate system.' Jan spoke up, his voice and expression thoughtful. 'You'd need a network - and perhaps a series of plasma generators on gas giants. The longer the distance between gates, the less chance of anything sent in at one gate coming out of another intact. The plasma beam would lose cohesion quite quickly…'

'But if the plasma stream was big enough to start with, the lack of cohesion isn't as much of a problem as - say - getting a ship out of the gate network in one piece,' Mamoru suggested.

'Then the problem becomes one of containment,' Jan replied patiently. 'Otherwise you vapourise the gate.'

'Isn't this moot?' Jones asked. 'I mean - there's no such thing as an interstellar hyperspace gate network, is there? This thing's probably just a prototype…'

Mamoru exchanged a glance with Maya. 'Actually, there is a working prototype, and a concept. Tochiro Oyama's grandfather had a plan for a network that would create an interstellar "railway" - linking the colonies and the nearby galaxies to provide cheaper travel. He thought it would bring humanity together again, by making the universe a more connected place…'

'There's a set of large rings in storage around Saturn,' Maya added. 'Tochiro's father has a somewhat quirky sense of humour - hiding the rings in the rings…'

'As soon as we get the transmitter up and running, I want an encrypted message sending back to Grape Valley. Everything we saw and recorded, plus the speculation. Old Man Oyama needs to up the security around those mothballed rings - if Zone Industries are messing with this tech, chances are they'll make a play for them - sooner rather than later, since the test firing seems to have been successful.' Mamoru had to fight hard to resist the temptation to start rubbing his temples again; the goblin with the ice pick was working overtime.

'We've got an asteroid field with some likely candidates for repairs,' Komarova broke in. 'Enough at least to effect an on-site tectite conversion anyway, and several rare earths. It's big enough to take us, and we can get the scaffold deployed within the hour.'

'Do it. I don't want to waste any more time,' Mamoru ordered. He turned to Manfred, who was still leaning on the arm of the captain's chair. 'You ought to hit a bunk, Manny. Before you fall down.'

Manfred grinned ruefully at him. 'Like you Harlocks, we're from tough stock.'

'Yes, but that just means we suck it up until we drop,' Mamoru drawled. 'Jonesy - you're not needed for a while. Escort the ambassador to a free berth and make sure he stays there would you?'

'We still need to locate your brother,' Manfred began, resisting Jones' hand on his arm.

'It's not just about Phantom and Tochiro anymore - but this weapon might give us a break. Whilst we're waiting for the repairs to the hull, I want all scanners searching for the signatures of the elements and rare earths recorded during those blasts. Those rings and the control systems would take some seriously advanced cold atom physics to produce - that means both a mining and a manufacturing base of some size and power output. Things like that leave a trace, so I want a full spectrum sweep of the area, moving outwards from that system. My guess is they'll be far enough out of range that any serious mistakes won't reach them, but close enough to not have to drag equipment of that size too far. And Doppler Corp have a habit of using slave labour - if they rounded up survivors, it's likely they'd be put to work in the nearest facility. Find it, and we've got a good chance of finding my brother and Tochiro.'

'Can we do that in real-time?' Jan asked, frowning. 'I mean, we're talking light years in every direction…'

'Time-radar,' Jones explained patiently before Mamoru could reply. 'It's all a bit tech-wizardry, but it uses the same weird-ass physics of n-dimensional space-time and m-theory we use for IN-SKIP to basically bypass our limited perceptions of relativistic physics. Never quite understand it all myself, but the computers do all the hard work. Long story short, we get a snapshot in real time. So don't sweat it, kid. We got this.'

Jan pulled a face, but shrugged his acceptance. 'You lost me at "weird-ass physics"…' he deadpanned.

Jones laughed. 'Specialists…'

'It's a long shot,' Maya said softly to Mamoru. 'What if you're wrong?'

He tried to smile reassuringly at her. 'Then we'll break a few arms and legs until someone tells us where the rest of their facilities are. Sooner or later, we'll track them down.'

'And trashing a few Doppler Corp operations is just gravy,' Jones smirked.

Manfred straightened - not without effort, and tried to assume some kind of air of authority. 'Mamoru - I suspect that family in-joke on your chest is going to your head… I should remind you that technically, you're out of your jurisdiction, and operating as little more than a mercenary - or a pirate. If you're caught…'

'Mercenaries get paid,' Komarova interjected with a grim smirk. She ran a hand through her short, greying hair. 'Piracy has a nice ring to it though…' Her grin grew wider. 'The ladies were always more ruthless than the men, and I could fancy myself a latter-day Anne Bonney, with a crew of young, fit, half naked beefcake to stare at.' She looked around at the wild-eyed faces staring at her. 'What?'

'It's contagious…' Manfred muttered.

'It's _disturbing_ ,' Maya added. Although at the thought of her husband stripped to the waist, his lean muscles taut and straining… the rush of desire mixed with longing was overwhelming for a moment. She'd last seen him over six months ago, his hair grown long from a year long mission out as far as Andromeda, blowing in the wind at the top of the gate tower of Schloss Greifenstein, out of uniform, his shirt open to his waist to show that slender trickle of dark hair that ran down his chest to his navel that she knew continued further down the flat, hard lower plain of his abdomen...

She leaned over her console, peering through suddenly watery eyes at numbers and dials which refused to make any kind of sense.

A large hand fell onto her left shoulder and gave gave it a squeeze. 'Hey, sis.' She looked up into her oldest brother's face - bruised, but smiling reassuringly at her, his fair hair falling over his left eye so untidily she had to resist the old temptation to brush it back. 'It's going to be fine. We'll find him. And if we don't, then we'll make the bastards pay dearly, I promise. All of us will. You get that transmitter up for us, and after you call the old man, you're going to get a call through to dad, Marcus and Marius, and we'll get Captain Tightass over there some much needed backup.' He waved off Mamoru's indignant sigh. 'Well you are, Mamoru-kun. And when this is over I'm going to chew a piece of Shiro's hide for talking you into this shit in the first place.'

'I _volunteered_ ,' Mamoru pointed out with a pained expression.

'Because you've always picked up the mess everyone else leaves behind 'em, Mamo. You always did, even in the Academy. Shiro Sanada used to call you "Old Reliability", you remember that?'

'I punched his lights out for it on at least two occasions,' Mamoru replied dryly. 'I can fight my own battles, Manny.'

'Sure you can,' Manfred replied smoothly. 'That's why you're out here, illegally, with no commission, no backup, no mandate, and your family - namely the girl you chucked your military career away for - back on Earth.'

'My _family_ is also out _here_ ,' Mamoru told him grimly. 'My brother. Tochiro. This _is_ my battle.'

'And yet,' Manfred said gently. 'Here we are again, you picking up the shit someone else has created…' He shook his head and sighed. 'Get that transmitter working, sis. Time we got a couple of extra brooms out here…' He patted Maya on the shoulder and this time allowed Jones to lead him off the bridge.

* * *

 _ **Dis**_

Harlock stripped off the top of his coveralls and tied the arms around his waist. Beside him, Tochiro had already gone even further, and was sitting at his station wearing only a pair of blue and white striped boxers he'd found in a locker. Harlock could only hope they were clean… Not for the first time he wished a towel had been left behind, because sweat was dripping down his face, his chest, his back and into places he'd rather not think about, since they'd involve chafing at some point. 'Are you sure we can't switch the air conditioning on? I'm going to end up as the starring role in a lobster dinner at this rate…'

'I told you - we need to keep the energy signature to a minimum. The QT field actually futzes with the tracking algorithms of the sub at long range, but presumably they can track them from base using the gravity anomalies we leave in our wake - which is why I needed you yo plot a course weaving through this canyon - the granite will help mask our signal. But if we put out a bigger energy signature, we'll light up their boards like a christmas tree.'

Harlock squirmed in his seat and Tochiro grinned at him. 'Oh - go on, just give 'em a scratch - it's only me in here and I totally have your back on the subject of sweaty bollocks.' He suited action to word by having a hearty scratch at the offending area. 'Ah. That's better…'

Harlock closed his eyes briefly and attempted to ignore him. 'How long until we can surface?'

'We can't. Not safely. That's the whole point of these things. They go point to point underground, so we can't do anything until we reach the spaceport.'

'Even if they attack us?'

'Especially if they attack us - but on the plus side, no-one's likely to be bombing us from the air on this rock.'

Harlock scanned the readouts in front of him and frowned. 'What worries me more is defending ourselves if they catch up. We've got two missiles left - that doesn't leave much room for error…'

Tochiro's blue-and-white clad behind stuck up in the air again underneath one of the consoles. 'Working on it!' he called back over his shoulder, the sound slightly muffled by the wires in his teeth. He spat them out. 'Gotcha. I'm rerouting the comms system through the backup QT field generator. It does mean if the main generator goes down we're toast - literally - but it gives you a non-directional burst that will interfere with their QT fields. Hopefully just enough to disrupt them long enough to "sink" them.' He backed out and gave his friend a thumbs up. 'God, I'm good!'

Harlock arched his left eyebrow. 'Can I reserve judgement on that until we've tried it and don't die? Whilst I love that I've never yet found something you can't weaponise under pressure, some of those improvs have had a distressing tendency to blow up in our faces - and I like my face the way it is, thank you.'

Tochiro wriggled into the engineer's chair with a snort. 'Then why didn't you get that scar fixed, pretty boy?'

Harlock shrugged. 'Bad timing.'

Tochiro snorted again. 'Yeah. Right. Avoiding spending any time back home where people will start asking awkward questions. You know - you're the poster-boy for _verschiebung_ _._ Denial, as they say, ain't just a river in Egypt. If it's displacement activity you want, I can't imagine anything better than spending a hot summer day under a waterfall with that lovely, long-legged beauty you somehow talked into marrying your scrawny, bad-tempered ass.'

'It's _winter_ back home,' Harlock replied tetchily.

Tochiro indulged in some over the top eye rolling. 'Aaannndd… I rest my case.'

'Blow me,' Harlock replied absently, re-checking the screen and not even bothering to look round.

'In your dreams,' Tochiro shot back cheekily. He opened his mouth to send another shot across his friend's bows only to be stopped by a raised hand. 'What?'

'There's a large granite outcrop dead ahead, blocking the gravitic sonar, but there's an anomaly in the readings I don't like. Could be an energy spike from a QT field…'

Tochiro bounced out of his seat and jogged over to the screen, peering over Harlock's arm when he got there. 'How the hell could they have gotten ahead of us?' He scratched idly at the back of his shorts. 'Okay. Now what?'

'How low can you power down our QT field and still keep us moving?' Harlock asked.

'About another ten percent, but we'll slow to a crawl. The field's not our main problem for being seen - any lower on the life support and we'll start to really boil…'

Harlock settled back in his seat and switched the large display screen to a split view - one of the terrain and another with the flat view from the sensors. Two blips kept winking in and out tin the vicinity of the massif he'd pointed out earlier. He took a firmer grip of the controls. 'Did you patch that comms-blast through to my station?'

Tochiro nodded. 'Just hit "transmit". I'll take the torpedoes.'

'Just don't fire until I give the order,' Harlock told him blandly.

Tochiro flipped him the finger. 'Once. That was _once…'_ he shot back snippily.

Harlock grinned. 'And when the boot's on the other foot,' he murmured softly, just loud enough for Tochiro to hear. Tochiro glared at him, but couldn't stay mad for long. He laughed, and the two exchanged smirks. 'God, we're good…' Harlock said brightly. 'Let's get those assholes out of our sand, shall we?'

Tochiro, about to settle back down in his own seat stopped and turned to stare at him. 'You're going all out?' he asked, his eyes large and round behind his thick glasses. 'You have _heard_ of discretion, right? Why aren't we just slipping round the side?'

'Because I never like to leave an enemy in my wake,' Harlock explained quietly. 'Never leave anyone at your back who can shoot you in it.' He eased the sub forward gently, and the hum of its engines rose in pitch slightly. 'The moment they spot us and come out from that radar shadow, plot a solution on both tubes but hold. Let me know when they're close enough for your trick to work its magic on both. We'll knock 'em off balance then hit them with the torpedoes and run for the spaceport. According to the charts it's only about five miles away.'

'Except, Captain smarty-pants, that won't leave us any way of getting through the underground hangar doors when we get there,' Tochiro pointed out in his best reasonable voice.

Harlock smiled briefly at him, a fleeting twitch of the corners of his mouth that if Tochiro had blinked, he'd have missed. 'I have faith in you,' he told him quietly. He'd no sooner finished speaking when the active sonar alarm pinged, reverberating through the hull. 'Party time…' he drawled softly, a predatory grin spreading across his face as he urged the small sub forwards towards their prey.

* * *

On board the _Theseus_ , Victor smiled grimly as he listened to the sounds from his headphones. 'We have them,' he told the masked man at the conn. 'Two hundred feet below our depth and fifteen hundred yards to port. Tell the _Asterion_ to move to intercept.' Silently, the masked man sent the message, and Victor turned to his second, a dark haired young man with a long face whose long hair didn't hide the upsweep of his pointed ears. 'Danga - tell the missile room to flood tubes one and three and plot a solution. When the _Ariadne_ turns to avoid the _Asterion_ , she'll be broadside on to us unless Harlock's planning on ramming us - and no-one would be that stupid…'

Behind him, Nevich cleared his throat. 'Why doesn't he just slip past you? Surely he doesn't have to engage…?'

The 'phones held casually in one hand, Victor turned to look at his unwanted guest. 'For the same reason we could get here ahead of him. The spaceport was built in the bottom of an extinct shield volcano. The massif only has one break in it, and we're guarding it. If he wants to go around he can - but it would mean surfacing and then leaving the _Ariadne_ to scale the above ground remains of the caldera on foot, and that, Alexei, is suicide in these conditions.'

Nevich frowned. 'But if these machines can turn sand to liquid, then why not just quantum tunnel through the rock in the same way?'

'That's not _exactly_ how it works,' Danga interjected. He closed his mouth and returned his attention to his station after Victor shook hide head slightly.

'You're right - the QT field does allow the sub to move through rock in theory - but it's not exactly field tested. Lose power before the entire machine is through the impediment, and the transition boundary fluctuates below the safe margin, and you'll be stuck there. It happened to the _Europa_ in trials. The research team had to cut the crew out of the rock.' He paused and allowed a slow, unpleasant smile to stretch the corners of his mouth. 'That was how we discovered that a critical failure during phase transition leaves a very nasty instability at the sub-atomic level… our engineers are still trying to work out if we can contain and weaponise the effect.'

' _Asterion_ closing in on the _Ariadne's_ position,' the sonar operator called out, his voice modified to a monotone by the metal mask. 'Signal lost, commander.'

Where an unmodified human voice would have risen in tone to indicate concern, this last was delivered in the same flat, emotionless monotone he might have delivered a list of Victor's laundry in.

'Lost?' Nevich, however, could screech annoyingly for ten men. Victor flicked the irritating face away from his ear, catching the idiot on his oh-so-elegant nose. _Serves him right for getting into my personal space_ …

'How can you lose the signal?' Victor asked. He held the phones back up to his ear, listening intently. Behind the tell tale buzz of their own QT field, and the more distant fizz of the _Asterion_ , all he could hear was the soft slide of sand that acted as background noise in Dis' dry oceans. 'They've cut their QT field down to the minimum…' he mused out loud. 'That could be a mistake. Danga - any fluctuations in the gravitic field?'

'Negative. The granite outcrop distorts the fields in this area.'

Victor smiled. 'Clever boys… they learn fast. Maybe once you have Oyama, Alexei, I might have a use for Harlock in the Masked Corps after all... '

Nevich snorted. 'If you think Hechi's mind-bending techno-hypnotism can tame that one, you're in for a world of hurt.'

'Commander?' Danga had turned in his seat, and awaited orders.

'All ahead slow. They've been running slow for hours and keeping the EM output to a minimum to avoid detection, which means they daren't increase the on board cooling - they'd light up our sensor boards like a nova. If we hadn't known where to trap them, we might never have found them. It's been twelve hours, which means they must be running at close to forty-eight degrees in there. They can't stay powered down for much longer - either the heat will start to register a warm spot on the thermals, or it will overcome them and they'll have to power up. Tell the _Asterion_ to start dropping QT charges - work a randomised sweep over the area based on their projected course and speed when we lost the contact. Sonar - boost the active signal - blanket the area - if anything bigger than a sand slug moves out there I want to know.'

'Yes sir!' Danga tapped his link and began snapping out orders.

'Meanwhile, you're going to do what?' Nevich asked with a sneer.

Victor sat back in his seat, refusing to rise to the bait. 'We wait, Alexei. This isn't like a dogfight, or even a space battle. There are no lightening fast strikes, no set-piece battles. We wait, we listen. This young captain - he's not much more than a boy. He's what - twenty seven? He's a test pilot - a screw up the regular military don't want. Spends his life playing with fast expensive toys. He's been lucky so far eluding us, but that luck will run out. And when it does, we'll have him.'

Nevich pushed his purple-tinted glasses up his long thin nose and stared at Victor. 'You know - the way you're starting to talk I'm not sure whether you want to shoot the brat or fuck him,' he drawled.

Victor smiled. 'There's a certain raw beauty about him that's attractive,' he mused. He laughed when he saw Nevich recoil with a sneer. 'Earthers. You're such prudes. Why shouldn't I take the youth to my bed if I feel like it? But no - not this one.' His eyes narrowed. 'Some toys are far too dangerous to play with, no matter how lovely.'

'Not even with those controls you build into your harem?' Nevich sneered. 'Maybe you're not as confident of either your tech or your charms as you claim…' He smiled coldly. 'So much for Elite superiority.'

Victor sighed, and tried to ignore the idiot, wishing he'd put his foot down and left him back at the base. But… they needed Zone Industries - for now. It was after all the only "in" to the Gaia Fleet and Sanction they now had, after the expulsion of colonial personnel and the moratorium on colonial business seven years ago. Taking a few days of crap from a moron was a small price to pay.

But… he did wonder, as the Theseus drifted slowly and purposefully through the deep sands, what would it be like, to take a man like Harlock… to break him and bend him to your will - not with Hechi's trickery - that would be too simple and probably leave him a drooling shell.

It always hinged on finding a key… something that a man or woman cared so much for that holding it, threatening it, could unlock even the strongest, most stubborn opponent.

'What's your key, Harlock?' he whispered, so quietly that not even Nevich could hear. 'What would it take to break _you…_?' He smiled. 'Maybe I won't kill you after all…'

* * *

Although intended to hold a crew of six, the command room of the stolen sand sub was tiny and cramped, barely room to move your elbows between stations, Harlock mused as he guided the vehicle slowly through an unfamiliar medium. He also had to remember not to stand up too quickly - there would have been barely enough headroom for Mamoru - and his brother easily exceeded six feet. Just not to the extent that _he_ did…

'How are we doing?' he asked Tochiro, who seemed to be turning a peculiar shade of red in the heat. 'I really hate flying blind, for the record…'

'Eh?' Tochiro pulled one of the headphones away from his ear. 'Didn't catch that - we've got one of the other ships bearing down on us, and I think they just launched something…'

'I thought you said these things weren't battle-ready? Just construction?' He had to fight to stop that from coming out between clenched teeth.

'Ah… well… they do have some charges that can be launched from the side ports,' Tochiro muttered. 'I think they're for blowing shit up that gets in their way, from the inside…'

'What makes you think that?' _And I know I'm not going to like the answer_ …

'Probably the fact they're equipped with QT fields of their own!' Tochiro called out gaily. 'And… erm… they seem to be trying to scare us out of the water… erm… sand…'

'Great…' Harlock muttered, casting a frustrated glare at his friend. 'How close?'

There was a loud "boom", and the ship shook from stem to stern, reverberating with the explosion.

'Fairly close!' Tochiro shouted. 'They're right on top of us - maybe a hundred yards, fifteen degrees off our starboard bow!' He yelped as another charge detonated nearby. 'Crikey! It's like a new year fireworks display out there!' he called out as a volley detonated.

'Well bugger this,' Harlock grunted. He hauled on the controls. 'Fuck, this thing handles like a greased piglet… Give me a heading!'

Tochiro reeled off a list of numbers, then held onto his console for dear life as the sub bucked under them. 'Er… Harlock - just what are we planning…?'

Harlock grinned at him. 'Pirate tactics…' he deadpanned. 'How close are they to that shield wall?'

'Too close - Harlock, if you hit them head on and we keep on going, we'll have a head on collision with the laws of physics not even you can bounce back from…'

Harlock's grin got even bigger. 'Have a little faith, Tochiro. I have…' he reached out a hand and touched the firing button for the adjusted QT wave. 'Fire torpedoes!'

'Torpedoes away!' Tochiro punched the control and listened intently as the fizz in his ears intensified as they drew away from the sub. 'Five… four… three… two…'

'One!' Harlock called out. He stabbed the transmission control just as they reached the limit of their QT field before it meshed with their pursuer.

* * *

On the bridge of the _Theseus_ , Victor pulled off the phones and practically threw them to the floor, wincing. 'Danga! What just happened!' He was yelling far too loudly, he supposed, but he could barely make out Danga's reply, his ears were still ringing from the overload.

'I have no idea - the _Asterion's_ QT field just peaked and went silent, just as something closed with it….' he looked back over his shoulder. 'Commander - I think they rammed it!'

'Rammed?' Victor leaned forwards. 'Is he suicidal?!' Every single light on every single terminal appeared to have gone off at once. 'Report - all stations!'

'Massive energy spike near the massif,' someone replied. 'Sensors are picking up a large quantum instability…'

There was a rumbling noise that shook the entire ship and Victor had to hold onto the arms of his seat even as Nevich lost his balance and fell in a heap, his head hitting the metal floor with a soft thump.

'Commander! Avalanche!' Danga called out.

'Underground?' Nevich shouted in disbelief from the floor, holding his head. A cut on his scalp was bleeding profusely.

'Full speed - get us out of range!' Victor snarled.

An aurora filled the room, flickering over the consoles and haloing the crew, both Elite and masked. Victor lifted his hand and watched rainbow trails flow around it and leave ribbons of multi-coloured light in its wake. 'Too late…' he murmured.

The _Theseus_ shuddered and stuttered to a halt, and then just as Danga drew a breath, about to say that the worst was over, the ship was swept by a massive wave, and tumbled like a leaf in the wind until it came to rest, nose up, several hundred feet away.

On the bridge, Victor heard the ever-present hum of the air-con stop. 'Fuck,' he muttered softly.

Then the lights flickered and winked out.


	10. Chapter 10

'Harlock! Harlock!'

The frantic voice brought him slowly back into touch with the world outside his pounding head, and he groaned.

'Harlock!'

Now the voice was shaking him, pulling and pushing on his shoulder, and he reached out a hand to slap away the offending irritation. 'Piss off, I'm trying to sleep!' he mumbled, and tried to turn over and pull the covers back over his head.

Except he couldn't move: he was wedged against something cold, hard and metallic, and lying on what felt like a cheese grater. And his hands, clutching for a non-existent sheet merely found bare skin and a warm, sticky substance on his chest.

'You're not in bed you daft bugger, you've been out for over an hour.' Tochiro's voice, usually warm and deep, if slightly over-excited, held a sombre tone. _Well that was never good…_ He struggled to sit upright, and the wave of nausea that washed over him made him wish he hadn't. He swallowed hard, tasting the last ready meal he'd eaten from the sandmarine's stores - he hadn't thought it was possible for those long-life packs to taste even worse, but no - bile as a condiment would do it. His nostrils twitched as he sniffed, scenting the coppery tang of electrical fires mixed with the acrid, clinging oily stink of scorched plastic. The bridge still had wisps of suppressant gas coiling around the struggling fans. His head, his right arm and his chest all hurt - his arm with the dull ache of deep bruising, his head with the sharp stabbing pain of a cut, and his chest with both. He looked down through unfocussed eyes, wondering why everything looked as though it was outlined in rainbows.

'Did we have one hell of a party, or inhale something we shouldn't?' he asked. His hands swam into focus, slowly. Covered in blood. He touched the muscle above his left nipple, where the pain was sharpest, and traced the line of a long but shallow cut. A darker stain was already forming along his ribs on that side.

'The rainbows? Oh that's just the QT field. We kind of overloaded it when we hit that other sub.' Tochiro waved off the incident airily. 'Don't worry, it's not enough to make us start sliding through walls ourselves. By the way don't move too fast, you took a couple of nasty knocks. Here.'

He drank from the offered water bottle, although the water was unpleasantly tepid. The temperature he realised was even higher than before they'd attacked the second sub. He struggled to his feet and looked around.

The cramped bridge was now made even more cramped by one of the supporting girders, which straggled across where he'd been sitting, crumpled and twisted. He touched the scored, jagged cut along his side. _Well, that explains_ _that_ … The lights flickered intermittently on the walls, and most of the five consoles had red warning lights on them.

'We still have some power,' Tochiro told him. He helped Harlock get to the nearest chair, where he sat down gratefully. 'I switched it to life support.'

Harlock gave him a sharp look. 'I thought we were trying to avoid being noticed?' Tochiro's pitying look in reply was all he needed to remember why that was such a stupid question. 'Right. Kind of made that a moot point, didn't I?' He glared at his friend's hand, reaching for him. 'Pat me patronisingly on my arm and you _will_ draw back a bloody stump. My head's pounding. I thought our plan was to just immobilise the other sub? What blew?'

'They did.' Tochiro took off his glasses, which had survived the encounter rather better than Harlock had, and gave them a quick check before pushing them back up his nose. 'When we hit them with that pulse to disrupt the QT field, and rammed them, they phased right into the rock behind them. Trouble is, when you turn a QT field off and two masses suddenly occupy the same space, you create a quantum instability… Well, these devices do, because they aren't that efficient. They work well enough in the sand and in loose aggregates, but metamorphic - ' he stopped, coughed once and changed the topic, seeing Harlock's eyes take on the slightly glazed look that suggested he was heading into too much technical detail. 'Long story short, the energy in there has to go somewhere, and in this case it went boom. We redecorated a considerable part of the local geography with that little stunt.'

'Can we move? And is the sonar working? Where's that other sub?' The sight in his right eye starting to get a little blurry, and he rubbed it, grimacing when his hand came away covered in a mix of sweat and blood. Like smearing grease on a windshield, rubbing it only made things worse. He tried blinking, but both eyes were gritty and sore.

'The sonar is working, and the other sub got swept up in an avalanche, which would have been awesome - I mean, fluidising solid rock like that without heat? You know, this technology has some seriously great potential if used properly.'

'Seriously great potential for being used as a weapon,' Harlock pointed out. He felt a slight pang of guilt when Tochiro's animated expression turned into one of hurt and dismay at the realisation. But then he always did get carried away by the tech, and sort of forget that people tended to misuse anything they could get their hands on, no matter how good your intentions might be. 'I notice you didn't answer my first question… how bad is it?'

Tochiro scuffed the floor with his booted foot, looking decidedly odd since he was only wearing a pair of boxers, socks and army boots. 'We can keep ourselves where we are with what we've got, but the only way for us is up - and that means exposure to those sandstorms. Once we're on the surface we'll only be able to protect the hull with the QT field against the storm. We'll be a sitting duck.'

'Fuck.' Tochiro still didn't look at him, and Harlock began to feel the cold dark pit open in his stomach. 'Tochiro… for god's sake, let me have it. What could be worse than those storms?'

Tochiro looked him straight in the eyes. 'You know how that spaceport was the other side of this wall? And that said masif is the remains of an ancient caldera of an extinct supervolcano?'

'Uh-huh…' Oh… he had a feeling he knew where this was going… 'It's... not so extinct anymore, is it?'

Tochiro shook his head solemnly.

Harlock resisted the temptation to bury his throbbing head in his hands. 'Why does this always happen to us?' he muttered. Then the last bit of Tochiro's words hit his brain. 'Did you say "super volcano"?'

Tochiro's hiccuping giggle was more than slightly hysterical. 'I was kind of hoping you might not notice that last bit…'

* * *

Victor leaned back in his seat and winced as he moved. The cross-belts of his seatbelt had dug deeply into his chest, although at least they'd done the job they'd been designed for. Alexei Nevich hadn't been so fortunate and was being helped to his feet by one of the crew of the _Theseus_ , blood trickling from a cut which extended from his temple, through his left eyebrow, and holding his left wrist with his right hand. 'Cut those sirens!' he ordered curtly. Danga hurried to comply, and a blessed silence fell over the bridge, at which several of the crew heaved a sigh of relief. However the rainbow glow of a damaged QT field flickered around every line and curve in view, and the blinking lights of multiple warning systems would have been a problem if photosensitive epilepsy had persisted in the Elite gene pool. 'Report!'

'The _Asterion_ is gone, sir. And so's the area of the shield wall that they were slammed into by the _Ariadne_. Somehow the _Ariadne_ generated a wave which interfered with the _Asterion's_ QT field, causing it to fuse with the rock instead of phasing through it. The resulting explosion quantum liquified the entire masif for a radius of a mile with the _Asterion_ as the epicentre. We were carried along by the resulting avalanche, and we seem to have come to rest about half a mile from our starting point.' Danga delivered the news in his usual laconic monotone, at times barely distinguishable from the masked mens' atonal delivery, but he was still staring at his console as though a live sandsnake was about to crawl out of it.

'Did he say "radius"?' Nevich asked, a medi-pad clutched to his head. He waved away the ministrations of the masked man who tried to look at his arm. 'Later,' he snapped. The metal-faced figure bowed and retreated.

Victor waited for Danga to reply. His subordinate was either struggling to make sense of his readings or trying frantically to come up with a way of delivering news he knew no-one was going to like. 'That's correct,' Danga replied eventually. He swivelled in his chair so that he could look directly at his commander. His brow looked as though someone had plowed several furrows through it. 'The caldera wall extended a considerable height above sandlevel, and there's now a corresponding gap in the surface structure. The damage also extends below ground, and I'm getting some anomalous readings on the graviton detector as well as sonar, lidar and EM sensors.' He turned back to his console and called up a schematic on the holoscreen. 'This is the geological map of the area before the accident. The sand here had drifted against the shield wall, and was several hundred feet deeper than the rest of the surrounding empty sea. Below this however, the crust is - thinner than normal, and covers an old magma chamber of the volcano - long since dormant, or so we thought, since the active hot spot is now twenty miles away and located much deeper.' The view changed, and now the black void indicating the defunct chamber had a thin red line connecting it to the hotspot. 'This is the situation in the last few minutes. The quantum event has shifted and opened a fault in the crust, and the old magma chamber is filling rapidly. The void contained several gases and as a result is under considerable pressure. The crust is damaged, and our computers estimate that an explosive event is likely in the next seven to thirteen planetary days.'

Victor eyed the display, a worried frown crinkling his own brow. 'Just how big an event are we talking? What's the scale of this chamber?'

Danga turned in his seat again, never a man to deliver bad news without looking the recipient in the eyes, something that despite his dour demeanour, Victor appreciated about the man. 'Extinction level,' he replied calmly. 'A conservative estimate of almost 200 cubic miles of magma, dust and ash, along with a considerable outpouring of sulphuric gases. Enough to bury the base and the spaceport in a matter of hours - although anyone in those areas would be dead long before they were smothered or burned to death.'

'Dear god, man - don't sugar-coat it, will you?' Nevich muttered.

'Shut up, Alexei.' Victor leaned forward in his chair, winced and unbelted his cross-belt. 'Or I'll stick a mask on your head. Danga - how much damage to the spaceport so far?'

'The landing areas are still useable, but not for much longer. Cracks are reported across the facility, and the uplift in the area is already half an inch and rising. This bubble's on the rise, commander, and it will burst.'

'Well, fuck.' Victor sat back hard, almost bouncing off the backrest. 'When those two little pests get to work, they don't mess about, do they. What's the status of the _Ariadne_?'

'She's partly surfaced, nose up, about a mile away from ground zero. She must have been protected by her QT field and ridden out the wave, as we did. But from the sounds of it, her propulsion drive is silent - they're going nowhere, and once power fails, the sandstorms will strip it bare in hours.' Danga paused briefly, then: 'Do we go after her?'

Victor did give it some thought, then shook his head. 'No. Leave them. A long slow death with no hope of rescue is a far worse fate than anything I could come up with.' He smiled. 'Hoist by their own petard…' he murmured appreciatively. 'There's something remarkably satisfying watching your enemies do your work for you and slip the noose around their own necks, thinking they're so damned clever…' He took a deep breath. 'What's our status? Can we move?'

'Not far,' Danga told him grimly. 'We won't make it back to base, but we can limp above ground to the spaceport, now that there's a convenient hole in the defences - on which note, this gap leaves the port vulnerable to the storms - currently the winds are blowing north-north-west, at right angles almost to this side of the caldera. But there's a front heading this way in the next fourteen hours that will change that - instead of hitting the shield wall, it'll blow straight for the port. The forcefield won't last for more that twenty-four Earth standard hours at which point we'll struggle to protect the beanpole.'

'Hmm. How long to evacuate the base?'

'Forty-two hours minimum, if we clean out as we go with the equipment, processed product and stored raw materials awaiting processing, as per protocol, and don't hit any snags.'

'Personnel only?'

'Since we're down to one sandmarine, thirty hours, and that's if we leave behind the workers and just take Elite personnel and masked men.'

'Well that's hardly going to work is it?' Nevich snapped. 'What if you left behind the masked men?'

Victor didn't have to rebuke the idiot this time. He could almost hear the blood drain from Nevich's face as the seven masked men on the bridge all turned to look at him, blank faces implacable, unreadable, but the threat tangible.

'Why don't you ask _them_?' Victor asked. 'And good luck getting of this rock without them, by the way. They'll be doing the heavy lifting - unless you plan to chip a nail? No?' He turned away, the gesture deliberately contemptuous. 'Send a message back to the outpost and instruct them to start packing. Then call in the nearest transports in this sector and get them here - I don't care if they can fly afterwards, just so long as we can make orbit until a full evacuation can take place. We don't have the transports now we've lost two subs, to make it to the beanpole, so they'll need to make fly-by landings and take-offs in a fast turnaround. With force shields up, I think most transports should be able to withstand maybe an hour in the storm, which means we won't be taking full loads into orbit. Priority to the cold atom processing teams and finished product. Press the workers and the women into loading and prepping shipments. They'll be on the last transport if there's time.'

'But-' Nevich strode forwards until he stood between Victor and Danga. 'Are you mad? There are plenty more where they came from! Why-'

'Because hope gives a man an incentive, and frankly, it's a cheap win,' Victor replied smoothly, hiding his irritation. 'They'll bust a gut to get the shipments ready if they think that'll leave time to add them to the evacuation.'

'And will you?' Nevich asked slyly.

Victor shrugged. 'I'll keep my word - if we get everything loaded in time and if there's a transport spare, then yes, we'll take them. I don't waste resources, Alexei. There may well be millions of desperate souls out there ready for plucking, but it takes effort and time to round them up and process them, and I already have a trained, compliant workforce here - one which, if we relocate, will be far more willing to work for us if I keep my word and save them. And word does get around. A little compromise, Alexei, goes a long way in this world. It's simply good business.'

'It's a waste,' Nevich grumbled. 'Why leave behind more raw material than you have to?'

'Because we can always come back when - or if - this planet settles down. We're far enough away from the eruption site that it's unlikely to do any metamorphic damage to the excavation site, right Danga?' His subordinate nodded. 'So,' Victor continued, 'we can always restart. But the equipment is our biggest investment - these cold atom processors are bloody expensive, and vital to continued production of all those little devices your company loves so much, and that keep our ships flying. The rest is discretionary, and it's my discretion that's being exercised.' He nodded sharply, and two of his masked men strode forwards and grabbed hold of Nevich, one to each arm. 'Take our guest here to a bunk and make sure he stays out of our way for the duration. I'm sure he needs some attention to his injuries.' He turned a deaf ear to the overdressed poppinjay's objectionable squawks as he was hustled out. Once the door had slid shut behind him, he rubbed the spot above his right eyebrow with two fingertips.

'Do we have to put up with these idiots?' Danga asked.

'Sadly, yes. For now. The Chancellor wants their manufacturing facility in the Sol system, since we've not been able to make any inroads into that base orbiting Titan. And despite Zone's tendency to over-engineer most of his machinery, after Hechi and perhaps the Oyama's, he's the best engineer working in several fields.'

Danga eyed him coldly. 'Perhaps the Chancellor should just cut the Earthers loose and simply take these men? It's obvious this Homecoming Movement's spiralling out of control - it's not just a political matter any more, and it's gone way beyond simple protests and a few bombs. There's a tsunami heading for Humanity's homeworld and it's out of control. When it hits…'

'When it hits,' Victor interjected smoothly, 'it will be met with weapons so powerful that the entire galaxy will tremble. Weapons that we have been - and will be - instrumental in creating, in making possible. No more piecemeal set-battles, ship-to-ship, fleet-to-fleet… a single salvo will wipe out entire fleets - and afterwards, they'll be there to keep the depopulated worlds those migrants leave behind in check.'

Danga smiled coldly, the expression failing to reach his cold, dark eyes, which always reminded Victor of a shark's. 'Leaving space - and Earth - to those best suited to govern and exploit it?'

Victor's smile was considerably warmer. 'As it always should have been. Our ancestors wanted the rank and file of humanity contained safely on Earth where they could be controlled and harvested sustainably in our service. This… this is just redressing the balance at last, culling the weak and unfit from an overpopulated galaxy. We might not have started it, but we will make sure that this time, our Chosen Race will guide events in the right direction.' He sat back in his chair with a weary sigh. 'Take us back to base, Danga. I'd like to be off this rock before it blows.'

He closed his eyes as he felt the _Theseus_ lurch forwards and then level out, its movement not nearly so smooth as it should have been. Still, he thought, they were moving, which was more than that idiot captain and his friend would be doing. A pity about young Oyama, but Hechi would just have to step up his attempts to break the Oyama hold on Arcadia Engineering another way. Whatever they were up to in the Grape Valley facility couldn't possibly be that important.

He relaxed, letting himself sink a little deeper into the chair's acceleration foam. He'd make sure the pick of his women were loaded onto an earlier transport. Three of them were pregnant, after all, and he'd be interested to see what the results of those matings would be like. One needed the occasional out-cross to keep the species healthy, after all. And he'd hate for his gene-line to become as inbred and dissolute as Hechi's - or - and he would always keep this heresy to himself - the Chancellor's…

* * *

Harlock sat on the floor, and contemplated the pistol sitting in his lap. A bog-standard, military issue blaster. Cold hard lines, cerametal and titanium, a full charge shoved into the clip, so new and shiny it might have come straight out of the wrapper. It was functional, but ugly, and he felt more than a little pang of regret for the loss of the Colt Dragoon Tochiro had made for him, now probably filling the holster of some unknowing fucktard who wouldn't appreciate the history behind the design, or the thought and care its creator had put into it, a gift from one friend to another, carefully thought out to appeal not only to a much-mocked affection for times past, but also a desire to have something that could theoretically stop an elephant in its tracks.

'If you start talking about saving the last two bullets for us, I'm going to hit you with that.' Tochiro spoke from where he sat on the floor next to Harlock, leaning against his side wearily. He'd spent the past four hours trying to re-route their useless drive into powering the comms instead, hoping against all odds to boost a signal through the planetary comms into the warp satellite in orbit.

The transmission had worked - but whether or not it would reach its destination was another matter entirely. And there would not be another chance. The comms array had burned out with the power load, and all the residual power was now routed to life support.

'It's a _blaster_ ,' Harlock pointed out, more from habit than anything else. He was too hot, too tired and far too sweaty to put much effort into arguing. 'There aren't any bullets.'

'Well that's a relief then,' Tochiro quipped. 'That's one cliché I won't have to put up with…'

Harlock decided not to mention that he _had_ considered it. It would be a quicker death than the one which awaited them, stuck in a tin can at the mercy of ferocious sandstorms, immobilised and with only a few hours left before the CO2 scrubbers gave out, since if they opened the filters to the outside they'd be sandblasted from the inside out in minutes.

 _On the plus side, at least one way or the other we'll be dead before this damn volcano blows_ , he thought. He kept that one to himself as well. Tochiro's ebullient crap was the only thing keeping them both going, even if it was under strain right now. He didn't look to see just how much time they had. In all honesty, he didn't want to know.

'On the other hand,' Tochiro added, breaking into his gloomy reverie, 'Are we just being needlessly stubborn about the whole thing? I mean - are we sticking this out because we genuinely hope we'll be rescued, or just because we're too bloody-minded to accept defeat gracefully and accept the inevitable?'

'I thought we weren't going to have this conversation?' Harlock asked wearily. A trickle of sweat ran down his back, and his skin twitched in its wake. It was a reasonable question however - just how much should a man cling onto life when all hope was lost? They were trapped, lost, and in a mess of their own making. To expect anyone to come and dig them out of it was expecting a hell of a lot from a universe which manifestly didn't give a shit. 'Suicide's supposed to be a sin,' he replied eventually.

'You've told me for years you don't believe in any of that stuff,' Tochiro told him. 'Bit late to start quoting dogma now…'

Harlock shrugged. 'I actually said I don't believe in much of _anything_.' And that much was true enough. Although it was sometimes hard to kick off the shackles of his childhood schooling, raised as a good little catholic boy, after all, a rarity in this day and age when religion and belief were scattered like chaff on the wind, along with humanity itself.

'But,' Tochiro persisted, 'if it came down to it - if I asked you to…'

'Tochiro…' He put a warning note into his voice, although it was becoming a struggle to speak. 'Don't.'

'But if we had to. I mean, we're here, now, and it looks pretty hopeless, and yet we're clinging on, just because. But if it came down to the wire - for both of us - could you? Let me go?'

'Could _you_?'

Silence.

'Yeah… that's what I thought.'

Tochiro punched him weakly on the arm. 'Tosser. For all your tough talk you're a hopeless romantic, you know? There's a part of you right now that's clinging onto that tiny little spark that's telling you that any minute now, Mamoru's gonna march through that hatch, calling you every name under the sun, and pulling our collective cocks out of the fire we've stuck them in.'

'I'd settle for that bastard with the pointy ears,' Harlock half-snarled, 'if it'd mean we'd get out of here.'

'On the basis that if we were recaptured, we'd just try and pull the same shit all over again?' Tochiro asked. He let out a husky little laugh. 'To hell with it - if we're clinging to an illusion, it's a damned seductive one. Can't blame you for holding on to it ' He laid his head with a heavy sigh in Harlock's lap, and stared up myopically at his friend, having removed his glasses at some point. Harlock placed a hand on his shoulder, leaned back against the inner hull and closed his eyes.

'Are we that predictable?'

Tochiro giggled weakly. 'Hell yeah.' Another sigh. 'I'd like to see Annelise again though. Before - you know. Best decision I ever made, that girl.'

'You always did have a weakness for red hair,' Harlock told him, a faint smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.

'And legs,' Tochiro mumbled. 'Legs that just keep on going. Bit like yours - only, not, coz I really don't fancy _your_ legs. Too hairy. And muscled…' he trailed off.

'Well that's a relief…' Harlock muttered in reply, with a faint laugh. But Tochiro's eyes were drooping closed. He patted Tochiro's bare shoulder, and tried not to think about how clammy it felt. He didn't feel too much better himself. 'Know what you mean though,' he murmured, half to himself. 'I miss Maya… seven bloody years married and thanks to this mess we've spent only nine hundred and ninety-nine days together…'

Tochiro opened one eye. 'Are you shitting me - you really counted?'

Harlock nodded. 'Every. Single. One. Even if she probably thinks I just wander back home for a quick shag and swan back off into space again as soon as I can. I envy Mamoru that more than anything - he's probably not spent that long in his life apart from Miranda, and he spends more time with my wife than I do.'

Tochiro patted him on the leg. 'Simple. We win this sodding war and go home. Problem solved.'

'Simple, huh? Five hundred billion people potentially on the bloody move heading in our direction demanding a place on a world that can hold three billion at most these days?'

But Tochiro was snoring gently, albeit with a little gasp at the end of each breath.

Which wasn't Tochiro's, Harlock realised slowly. _Oh… That'd be me_ … He looked down at his lap, and Tochiro's face was already blurring into a generic pinkish blob. The pistol rested in his right hand, which lay palm up next to his thigh, the chill of the deck seeping into the sinews.

His chin fell forwards onto his chest, and he didn't hear the squeaking of the hatch as it spun open, or feel the sudden rush of air into the room, ruffling his sweat-soaked dark hair.


	11. Chapter 11

'Harlock! Harlock!'

Mamoru shouldered his way past Con Jones and only just remembered to duck in time to avoid the low doorway of the inner hatch of the vehicle. The floor of the control room was littered with broken, twisted shards of metal and ceramic, and one structural girder had partially blocked his path to the figures sitting on the floor, the smaller with his head in the other's lap. 'Harlock!' He knelt next to the slumped form of his brother, but didn't touch him. Instead he carefully pushed the pistol held loosely in his limp hand out of the way.

'Aren't you going to give him a shake?' Con asked, his tall form blocking the hatchway, carbine at the ready.

'Not bloody likely,' Mamoru replied darkly. 'When he was sixteen I tried that one morning and ended up halfway across the room, on the floor, with his hands around my throat. It's safest to wake him up from a distance - he's a jumpy bugger.'

'He also heard that. Nice to see you too, nii-san. Keep the bloody noise down though, would you? I think Tochiro's trying to sleep…' Harlock's voice was hoarse and reedy, not his usual soft baritone. He raised his head to stare, blinked rapidly and shook his head slowly. 'The hallucinations are getting better. I should have known the last thing I'd see would be my brother's face with that "what have you done now, Albrecht", look on it.' He closed his eyes again and laid a hand on top of Tochiro's dark hair.

'Maudlin little sod, isn't he?' Con asked. 'Oi! Anything to report back there, you lot?'

'Not apart from a shit load of sand,' Jan replied, his dark head appearing near Con's shoulder as he peered through. His lower face was covered by the scarf which muffled his voice, and his eyes were covered by a pair of large goggles. 'Hey - it _was_ them!'

Mamoru reached out and tried to brush a blood-stiffened lock of hair out of his brother's eyes, and smiled faintly as a hand reached up to slap at him weakly. 'I'll need a medic in here, stat. Make sure we can move them.' His fingers found the cut on Harlock's scalp, and came away bloody. The blotchy bruising on his brother's torso - and the wasting visible instead of his usual lean muscled physique, merited an intake of breath and a muttered curse as his fingers probed gently, testing for swelling. A hand batted at him ineffectually.

'Get the hell off, hallucinations aren't supposed to get handsy.'

'No hallucination, baby brother. I've got you. Can you stand?'

'Tochiro…'

Mamoru looked down. 'Sleeping through the excitement, as always. Jan - Con - a hand over here?' He waited until his crew had gotten the smaller man to his feet, and part way conscious at least.

'He's a solid little bugger, isn't he?' Con grunted as Tochiro sagged against him. 'Up and at 'em, short stuff!'

'Less of the short,' Jan grumbled back at him. 'He's not that much shorter than me.'

'Touchy, touchy, kiddo. Keep your end up, and if you drop him, make sure it ain't on his head - that noggin is one of the most valuable we've got…'

With Harlock no longer pinned to the floor, Mamoru placed his arm around his brother. 'Arm around me, brat. We're getting out of here while we still can.'

Harlock tried to push him away and struggle to his feet unaided. He made it as far as his knees and sat there, hands on the floor, head down, his long hair shielding his face from view, and his body heaving as he struggled to breathe. 'I can do this. I don't need you to carry me,' he snapped.

Fast losing patience, Mamoru grabbed hold of Harlock's coveralls where they were bunched around his waist, and hauled him to his feet. He had to brace himself as his brother staggered and leaned hard against him. Sherry-dark eyes glared at him from under his untidy, unwashed and tangled hair. 'Clearly you do,' Mamoru told him, ignoring the almost murderous look. 'But it's your call - I came halfway across the damn galaxy to find you; you're anoxic, dehydrated, injured, clearly thinking less clearly than what passes for normal even for you, and whilst I've no doubt you'd rather crawl over broken glass than accept any help, I'm here. Your call, Phantom - I can let go and drop you right here, or we can do this my way.'

He waited for that dangerous light to go out in Harlock's eyes. Pride - and a stubborn streak a mile wide - had always been his brother's worst traits, but most of the time, he could outwait them. Eventually he felt his brother's body relax against him, and breathed a silent sigh of relief. 'Why is it,' Harlock asked him with world-weary frustration, 'that you always have to be so damned noble?'

Mamoru made sure he had a firm grip on his brother - his height made him a little awkward to manoeuvre in the tight confines of the vehicle, even slumped over. 'Well one of us had to be.'

Harlock jabbed a finger into his side as they walked - or rather Mamoru walked, Harlock half-staggered, only held upright by Mamoru's strong right arm. 'And yet, the self-righteous, self-sacrificing hero is the one wearing the skull and cross bones… I knew it'd suit you.'

'Stop being a prick and keep your feet moving. You gave me the damned thing - what did you expect me to wear when I found my flightsuits had been tampered with? Unlike you I don't make a habit of walking around half-naked.'

The flickering sconces on the wall were giving way to a brighter light coming from the airlock of the machine, where the link to the shuttle was docked. 'Almost there. Hopefully there's enough left of the shuttle to get us back to the ship. I'd hate to be stuck out in the open on this rock for long - why the hell couldn't you find a nice, quiet, arboreal world to need rescuing from?'

'Because the last time we found one of those, we had fungus growing in our underpants by the end of the first week, and Tochiro still swears he can't get rid of the itching,' Harlock replied weakly, with a faint attempt at a laugh. 'Mind you, we did find beautiful alien women in need of rescuing…'

They reached the airlock, and two masked and suited figures moved forwards to intercept and relieve Mamoru of his burden. 'Yeah? That reminds me - Yngwie sends his love…'

That did earn him a laugh from Harlock, however rough and brief. 'God, that one doesn't know how to take no for an answer… But no message from Mimay?'

Mamoru touched his forehead to Harlock's and cupped his brother's head in his hand, holding him close. 'Nothing repeatable in polite company,' he teased. He pulled away and let his crew take the lanky bastard out of harm's way. 'Komarova? We're out of here,' he said into his comm unit. 'Bugging out as fast as we can. What's the ETA on that storm front?'

'Ten minutes - I suggest you get that plane up right now - this wind extends all the way to the troposphere and it's carrying half the damned desert with it by the look of these readings.'

'Rivers of sand in the sky,' Con mumbled at him as he took his place in the cockpit, trying not to keep looking back over his shoulder to where Harlock and Tochiro were being strapped into gurneys for the trip, his medics attaching fluids to them. 'Who'da thunk it? A sand-laden jet stream…'

'Like being in a bloody shot-blaster,' Jan added from the navigator's seat. 'And can we please get out of here whilst the winds are below hurricane speed?'

'Does that even happen?' Con asked with a cheeky grin. His fingers danced over the controls. 'God - it's tough getting a visual or radar reading in this. We're flying back on the beacon, captain.'

'Just get us off the ground, Con. As long as we know which way is up, we can work it out when we're in orbit…' Mamoru replied, with more confidence than he actually felt.

The shuttle lifted off with a wobble, causing all three men to suck in a deep breath. One of the medics let fly an expletive that would have done credit to a dockside hauler. Mamoru didn't wait for clearance from the co-pilot - he hit the afterburners and sent the shuttle flying upwards at an angle its designers would have had kittens watching.

If they weren't strapped into stretchers behind him, already sedated.

* * *

'Is he awake yet?'

The words percolated slowly into Harlock's brain, but it was the voice that had his attention. A soft contralto, and eerily familiar. He tried to open his eyes but it felt as though someone had glued his lashes together. He tried to raise his hand to rub them, only to be brought up short by a sharp pinch in the back of his hand. Annoyed, he reached over with the other hand to try and remove the annoying object stuck in it.

'Ah-ah. No you don't, captain. Leave that line in there. And lie back down. Take it easy…' a different voice - a young man by the sound. Large hands pressed down on his bare shoulders - a bad move, as anyone who knew him would have told him.

'I wouldn't…'

That dulcet contralto again, and the male hands on his shoulders were replaced by smaller, daintier fingers, that soon wandered down over his chest with such knowing familiarity, he realised he was just dreaming again. 'Maya…' he breathed, lying back without any resistance on a soft pillow. Those gentle hands pulled a cool sheet over him, and patted his shoulder gently. Then a soft warm damp cloth was gently wiping his eyes and face, and this time when he tried to open them, they obeyed.

Gold… that was his first sight, with blurred vision. Lots of gold. And white.

The figure leaning over him swam into focus slowly. Long gold hair cascading over the front of a white flightsuit, which fitted tightly over a magnificent pair of breasts, coming to an end at a narrow waist. He'd have had to turn over more to see the hips, but he'd have bet good money they were full, but firm.

He looked past her. A small room, with a large glass window. One other bed, unoccupied but the sheets were rumpled. He was lying on a mattress so thin it could only belong in a military sick bay, and the man standing hovering behind his ministering angel was wearing light pink scrubs.

He concentrated, closing his eyes again. Low gravity, and the tell-tale vibration of ship's engines.

Memory flooded back. The dream he'd had, of Mamoru walking beside him? He felt like laughing. Some illusions were worth clinging to after all, if they came true.

And maybe not everything was a dream… He looked upwards, and felt the blood drain from his face. 'Maya?'

She smiled down at him. 'I thought you were going to sleep until we got back to Earth. Tochiro's been up for -'

'What the hell are you doing here?' He struggled to sit up, ignoring the flapping medtech in pink, and slapping away Maya's attempts to make him lie back down. Somewhere nearby something metallic crashed to the floor, and the needle in his hand tore free. He ignored the pain and the small spattering of blood from the injury. 'You shouldn't be here, you're supposed to be safe, back on Earth!'

She looked at him with her doe-like eyes, joy turning quickly to confusion. 'I came to find you-' she began.

'Well you shouldn't. For god's sake, woman - it's far too dangerous! You shouldn't be here.'

'You keep saying that,' she snapped, confusion rapidly replaced by anger. 'I came all the way across the galaxy to find you and all you can say is "go home"?'

He took a deep breath. And another. Part of him wanted to shake her until her teeth rattled, the other wanted to throw Mr. Pink out of the room and lock the door behind him, and show his wayward, beautiful wife _exactly_ what he wanted to do with her after over a year away from home… He drew a ragged breath. 'It's good that you wanted to find me. You have. But dammit, you're supposed to be safe… I mean, that's the plan - that's why we're out here. I'm supposed to protect you.'

'And who protects _you_?' she asked, moving closer again. She reached out a hand and he saw it trembled. 'Harlock…'

'Where's Tochiro?' He interrupted her so abruptly, she took a step backwards, a hand raised to her mouth as though he'd physically assaulted her. 'The other bed… where is he? Is he okay?' The cold icy sensation that spread down through his spine to reside somewhere below his stomach was almost like a blow, taking his breath away.

'He's fine,' Maya told him quietly, a slight tremor in her voice. She waved off the medic. 'He woke up a couple of hours ago, and said he was hungry, so…'

Harlock lay back on the cool pillow with a sigh of relief. 'Where am I?'

'Deathshadow.'

Looking around, he should have recognised the old girl. He'd spent enough time in this sick bay after all, a few years back, when she'd been under his command. He'd forgotten Tochiro and the Old Man had rescued the old wreck from being scrapped to test some of the new tech they'd been given by the Nibelung. 'Who's the captain?'

'Mamoru.'

He remembered… his brother leaning over him, radiating concern and brotherly irritation as usual. He'd thought it just a heat-induced hallucination, albeit a welcome one. 'Who signed off on that?' he asked after a long pause. 'He doesn't hold a commission, and I wouldn't have thought anyone would send a ship out to look for us - especially not a top-secret prototype using alien tech that we're not even supposed to have…'

'That would be your commanding officer, Sanada,' Maya replied, a little tightly, he thought. _Oh-ho… so Shiro had slipped up somewhere_? 'And technically we're not here to look for you, but to investigate the weaponry used to wipe out two entire fleets. The teeny-tiny fact that Manfred managed to find parts from your ship and others on the black market just happened to be part of a long chain of events that led us here…'

Despite his annoyance at her risking herself to be here, he couldn't really object too much to the sophistry everyone involved was obviously indulging in. 'So basically it's just a huge coincidence that looking for clues you found us?' he replied dryly. 'Well, we always knew the fleet had its priorities…' He reached out a hand and her fingers found his, entwining with them as though he'd never let them go again. 'Who's arse do I need to kick all the way to Andromeda for dragging you along?'

She sat down on the edge of the bed, still holding his hand. 'No-one. I had to go to Titan right after Mamoru left because they were having difficulties with the new warp radio systems. I spoke to Tochiro's father and he said they were prepping the Deathshadow, and the comms tech had gone down with something nasty. Since I worked on those new comm systems, and they needed a tech, I offered my services. Admiral Sanada granted me clearance, and Mamoru didn't even know until just before we shipped.'

'Shiro should know better. You're not military.'

'Neither are my brothers, or my father - but guess what - we've all stepped up to help find you, and find out what's going on out here.' She pulled her fingers out of his grip and glared at him. 'Next time I'll just have a nice eulogy read out and we'll spare ourselves the effort.'

He lowered his gaze, staring at the tiny spatters of blood in the wrinkles in the white sheet covering his legs rather like a fortune-teller peering at tea leaves in the bottom of a cup. With much less success, she judged from the mulish silence. Part of her wanted to shake him, but it'd have little effect. Apologies were not his strong point, even when he was in the wrong.

 _Especially_ when he was in the wrong. She stood up, for once determined not to be the one who'd cave in. 'When you're ready, Mamoru wants to see you in the war room. There's a uniform on the side there that should fit - I packed one of your spares just in case.'

It was hard to walk away. She wanted to run her hands over that bruised, torn and abused body and stroke away the pain. She wanted to untangle that shock of hair with her fingers and kiss those wide, full, sensual lips with everything she had, and to hell with that smirking med-tech waiting for her to leave. And a part of her wanted to hold him tight and scream "mine!" at the universe and anything and everyone that would try to hurt him or take him from her.

The automatic door had slid open to allow her to leave before he spoke. 'Maya?'

She turned, schooling herself into not showing anything on her face, watching him with as much cool detachment as she could manage. After all, she'd had enough practice over the years, every time he left. Or found an excuse to spend more time with Tochiro than he did with her or his sons. She waited, one had on the doorframe to prevent the sensor from letting it close again. He looked up at her, his dark eyes filled with an emotion she couldn't put a name to. She nodded once, not trusting herself to speak. 'Thank you,' he said eventually. It sounded as though a herd of wild horses had to drag _that_ out of him.

'Thank Mamoru,' she told him quietly. 'He's the one who was close to tearing a solar system apart to find you.' She watched as he swung his long, lean legs out of the bed and out from under the sheet. He was stark naked and at the sight her mouth went dry. The med-tech gulped audibly and began stammering something about protocol and tests and rest until Harlock stood up, drew himself up to his full height and simply growled "get out" at him.

Maya stood away from the doorway and waited for the blushing tech to scuttle through. Once the door had shut practically on the hem of his scrub tunic, she turned again to face her husband.

Who was now standing barely two feet in front of her, and she was staring at those lips, currently dark, the top lip curved into that irresistible cupid's bow, the bottom slightly fuller. The tip of his tongue appeared, and licked the central curve of his top lip, and she had to swallow, hard, at the memory of what that deceptively delicate organ could do. 'Harlock…'

He leaned closer, so close she would have sworn on oath she could feel the heat of him even through the regulation flight suit she wore. 'Shush.' He reached past her ear and thumbed the switch which opaqued the viewing window. He left his arm in place and moved the other one to match it on the opposite side, not touching her, and leaving her enough room to duck out of the box he'd made for her between his body and the door.

To do so however she'd have had to draw her body along his. She looked down. To do so, she'd have to brush past a part of him that hadn't gotten the memo that she was pissed at him. Or maybe all of his optimism was concentrated in the same part of his anatomy she often accused his brains of being in. 'You're an impetuous, selfish, ungrateful, arrogant…'

He kissed her, invading her mouth and cradling her tongue with his with a hunger she'd never been able to resist. 'You forgot reckless, beautiful, faithful, stubborn…' he teased when he pulled away slightly, punctuating each word with a kiss. His lips brushed her ear lobes, her neck, the eyebrows, the tip of her nose, her cheeks, her chin…

Her hands were already running over his chest, and she had to fight back her tears at the feel of him. He'd never been a bulky man; his frame was larger than most people thought - he was slim, true, his muscle was lean and always had been; but the slender, boyish torso of his youth had grown into a chiselled hardness she would have known anywhere, in the dark, over the years. Now she found ridges and radiating starbursts under her roving fingers, and the wasted scarcity of flesh over his ribs spoke of hardships she drew away from confronting. The bones of his hips were too prominent as well, and she skimmed their sharp edges gently, before clutching at the firm contours of his ass.

He groaned, and pressed her against the door. 'Maya…' He could make her name sound like a prayer. 'Oh god, I've missed you…' His hands were fumbling with the fastenings of her flight suit, barely opening it to the bottom of her rib cage before sliding a long-fingered hand in to cup her breast, stroking circles in an inward spiral to the tiny peak at its centre. 'I never wanted you to see this.' His voice was ragged, harsh next to her ear. 'You're not supposed to be a part of this. Not you. You're beautiful, and free-spirited, and you shouldn't be here. It's ugly, and brutal, and it destroys beautiful things. It tears your heart out and leaves it beating on the fucking floor, and god knows, that's actually a fucking mercy, because if you feel, if you care, you just want to start screaming at the injustice of it all.' She moved her hands away reluctantly from his body, to allow him to peel her out of the close-fitting garment. 'Bloody passion killers, these things,' he muttered. She had to hold onto his shoulders to let him pull her boots off one by one, standing on one leg at a time. Her flight suit followed, peeled off almost inside out and tossed into a corner. Her bra and panties were less fortunate - both tore under his impatient fingers, and were dropped to the floor in a heap of cheap, military issue cotton. He lifted her easily, and braced her against the door. Barely half aware she did at least retain enough foresight to slam the lock on. She was tall, but not heavy, and he'd always been able to hold her and support her whilst she wrapped her legs around his waist and let him fill her. His height and his strength had always awed her. She wound her arms around his neck, unable to do anything but hold on for dear life.

'I dreamed of you. Every night. You're the only light out here, did you know that? It's all darkness, everywhere you look. But as long as you were out there, back home, there was hope. You're what I fight for. Because I can't let that go out. I _can't…'_

The emotion was so raw, she wanted to beg him to slow down, to stop, to let her comfort him. Even if just for a little while. But this… this wasn't about comfort.

She bit back a sob. 'Then why not come home?' she whispered. 'You had leave…'

'I didn't want to drag it back with me. I'd shower and shower back on Titan and never feel clean. The darkness… it's like a living thing. It crawls into every part of you, tainting everything you touch, or see or dream. Every nightmare, it's lying there, waiting. Every broken body I saw had your face, or Mamoru's… Richard's, Miri's, Tochiro's…' His voice gave out in a harsh sob as he came, and she felt him shudder from head to toe. 'It's not a war,' he whispered harshly as he pulled free and set her down gently on her feet, still holding her close, pressed up against the cold metal door. 'It's a fucking slaughterhouse. We're being thrown at what we're told are military vessels, and half the time it's just a few frigates escorting a bunch of transports so old not even a museum would take them. What ships we don't tear apart likely won't make the jumps needed to reach Earth anyway.'

'Phantom…' tears fell unheeded down her cheeks now, and she reached up to stroke his face. The line of the scar across his cheek, remnant of a motorcycle crash years ago, the jagged reminder of the first night they'd made love. 'What happened?'

'I followed orders,' he replied bitterly, but coldly. 'This last time we were just one ship amongst over a hundred, against a cluster of signals out there that outnumbered us ten to one. Us or them, we were told. A great victory for the Gaia Fleet, they said afterwards, whilst they pinned medals on our chests for a job well done. But they made the mistake of sending some of us back for a clean up escort. Salvage. It's funny - you don't see it on screen. It's lines, and flashes of light, and little dots moving. But when you leave the safety of your tin can, you see it for what it is. What we did. Bodies everywhere, and worse, parts of bodies, frozen and drifting forever in the dark. Women. Children. Men. Thousands of faces, staring at us, screaming silently forever. Things which had once been people, now just scattered body parts, some not even recognisable as being once part of a person, a child… someone's pet...'

He was still now, terribly so, and that was far worse, this cold, emotionless recitation of horror. 'Two captains deserted. I sometimes wish I'd gone with them. Just told them where to stick it and go. God, Maya - I can't even say for sure I'm on the right side in this. Not if this is what we've become as a species.'

'Castlemaine…?' she asked softly. 'Oh, dear god, Phantom…'

He laughed harshly. 'Castlemaine? Hell no. Castlemaine was a different kind of slaughter entirely. But if you found Tiamat, I'm guessing you know that?' He drew away from her and walked back to pick up the uniform she'd placed next to the bed for him. Pants. Sweater. Jacket. Socks. Boots. Feeling awkward, and shaking a little, she picked up her discarded flight suit and pulled it on. Her underwear she stuffed into a pocket, flushing at the thought of that med tech finding them on the floor. 'We never even saw the ships that hit us - it was as though they could move around us in a heartbeat. We couldn't even get a lock on-'

'They weren't ships, that's why,' she broke in. He looked up from the boot he was tugging into place, startled. 'As best we can tell from analysing the data from when we were caught in the crossfire, the plasma was being streamed from the gas giant via hyperspace rings.' She nodded in answer to the tiny tilt of his head. His only reply to that was a grunt as he turned his attention back to smoothing out the tops of his boots before he stood up and straightened his jacket, grimacing as he ran a finger around the fixed metal collar.

'Then we'd better have that talk with Mamoru. For one thing, I'm going to have to commandeer his ship…'

* * *

'No.' Mamoru sat back in his chair, folded his arms and stared down his younger brother - no mean feat since this actually meant staring _up_ at him, since Harlock wasn't averse to using his height to loom when it was to his advantage.

'It's not your call,' Harlock informed him curtly. 'This is a battleship, and you are not - last time I checked - a serving officer in the Gaia Fleet.'

'It _was_ a battleship, it's a decommissioned vessel signed over to Arcadia Engineering for space trials, under my command, and at the request of a fleet admiral I'm conducting a clandestine survey of a battleground in search of some answers to some very pressing questions. My civilian status is irrelevant, and you bloody well know it. So no, you are _not_ having my ship.'

'Can he do that?' Con stage whispered to Komarova. She laughed, drawing out a frown from Harlock.

'Captain - you're over-stepping your authority. As the senior Gaia Fleet officer attached to this vessel, I outrank you. Admiral Sanada placed Mamoru Okita in charge of this mission, and as far as I'm concerned, that order stands.'

'Neither of you is an officer of the line,' Harlock pointed out in his most reasonable voice. He took the seat directly opposite his brother, leaned back in the chair and placed his impossibly long legs on the table, crossing them at the ankles and ignoring his brother's pointed glare. 'No offence, captain, but you've been teaching for longer than I've actually been alive, and my brother here tends to spend most of his time flying a desk.'

Tochiro placed his head in his hands, Con Jones' eyes widened and he whistled through his teeth. Maya leaned her head against the wall and wondered if banging her head against it would help, and caught the eye of her brother - Manfred was sitting closest to her husband and rolled his eyes at her. 'Want me to bounce him off a few walls for you, Okita?' he asked. 'It works wonders with uppity baby siblings…'

'I think I've got this, but thanks for the support.' Mamoru unfolded his arms and leaned forwards. 'We're not taking the ship down into the lower atmosphere. You need to take a step back and catch up with what's been happening since you made your escape.'

Around a mouthful of food, Tochiro added 'We kind of did a number on that caldera, my friend. The base is evacuating, but there's a chance we can take a team down before they clear out completely and get a few answers.' He swallowed and coughed, and had to reach for some water, handed to him by a grinning Con. 'Ta. Now - where were we? Oh yeah. I think you need to hear Mamoru's side of things before we go much further - and afterwards, we need to make some fast decisions, coz that pointy-eared bastard Harken has got a swarm of transports heading this way - looks like they're clearing out before this area blows.' He glanced expectantly over to Mamoru, who ran his fingers through his greying sandy hair and cleared his throat.

'We're going back down there, so there's no need to start chucking your weight about. Tochiro told me about Kav and Khalsa - and I owe those guys - if I can do anything to get Khalsa out, I intend to try. If we can save any of the other prisoners, then we will. But we need to see what they're manufacturing down there. Everything we've seen suggests this is where the Bose-Einstein condensates used for the hyperspace gateways and the plasma containment fields are being made.'

'So it wasn't me you were looking for?'

Mamoru smiled fondly at his brother's barely hidden pique. 'Baka. I found you because we were looking for the source of the tech for that weapon. Whilst we were repairing the Deathshadow's hull, I had Maya and Con - with Manfred's help - scour the closest systems for the spectra that would indicate the source of the materials - and the signatures of a large scale orbital cold atomic factory. We factored in the locations of the black market planets parts of the Yukikaze - and other items - were found, and it didn't seem unreasonable to think that anyone going to all the trouble to collect the survivors but not start talking prisoner exchange had a use for them. And it simply isn't economic to ship that many people further out than you have to. So when we found the spectrographic spikes we were looking for…'

'You played a hunch,' Harlock drawled.

Mamoru shrugged. 'Educated guess,' he countered. 'This weapon's a game-changer, brother. I need to make sure this facility is shut down. The mining operation is only one part of our plan - and that's going to be taken care of by the volcano that's about to blow - by the way, I will need to find out just what the pair of you did down there to cause that… even by your standards, that's one hell of a lot of collateral damage…'

'A new personal best,' Komarova added dryly. Harlock gave her a filthy look from under his fringe.

'Wasn't exactly planned,' Tochiro muttered. 'So what's the plan?'

'The base down there is being evacuated, and it looks as though the heavy machinery is being lifted to the orbiting transports. If this is a Doppler Corporation operation, they won't abandon anything they have a monetary stake in - they always cut their margins to the bone.' He looked around the table. 'They might overlook the computer servers in their haste - we'll need to see what we can find. Also try to find lieutenant Khalsa - and if there are any prisoners, we grab them as well, regardless of what "side" they were from. What we need to find is the orbital platform they're using to create the circuitry for the quantum computers. The cold-atom facility here isn't big enough, I suspect it's just for prototypes. The number of rings used in the attack at Tiamat would require an industrial scale production facility to produce the control circuits and quantum fluids can only be manipulated cheaply in microgravity.'

'We've got one in orbit around Titan,' Tochiro added. 'Small scale though, but enough for our company's needs. But it could be anywhere in the sector.'

'I'm guessing not.' Manfred called up a galactic schematic on the holo-display in the centre of the table, and zoomed in on a small area of space. 'We hit on this planet because we found all of the spectral signatures we were looking for, but there's no orbital factory here. But this is Doppler Corps were talking about - as Mamoru pointed out, for them it's all about profit. So if we take Shaitan as the centre of operations, and move out in an expanding sphere until we reach Tiamat…' The view now included Dis, marked in red with its name blinking beside it, close to both Tiamat and the edge of that sphere, 'then the facility has to be somewhere in this region.'

'It's a needle in a haystack,' Harlock huffed. 'But why not Metabloody, Grand Technologia or Lar Metal as origin points? All three planets have an extensive technological base, and could be providing facilities.'

'Because then Doppler wouldn't be controlling the operation,' Mamoru replied in his most patient voice. Harlock glared at him from under his untidy hair.

'Why do we assume he is? They could be sub-contractors.'

Mamoru turned to face Manfred. 'Manny? It is actually a reasonable question.'

'Don't sound so surprised,' Harlock muttered. Maya wished she was close enough to kick him on the shins - although since he still had his boots on the table, that would involve a more athletic action on her part than she thought would be possible.

'Marius and I have been monitoring the activities of all the major players out here for close on twenty years. Doppler Corp started out as a small family-run operation, true. Just a handful of families signed on way back, when the colonies were formed - some say even before they left Earth. They used genetic modification from the early twenty-second century onwards to distinguish themselves from the rest of humanity, although they weren't the only ones. Tiamat was an early settlement of the aquatics, before some unknown catastrophe led to them abandoning the planet. Lar Metal experimented with longevity and cloning for its upper echelons, and we've all heard the stories about Gamilas and Bolar. Doppler and his followers believe themselves to be some kind of master race, and selected and enhanced intelligence, longevity, and physical perfection. The pointed ears came from a recessive in Doppler's family tree that became fixed in the genetic pool.'

'Can we reach _your_ point some time this week?' Harlock drawled. Manfred shot him a filthy look.

'I still don't know what my baby sister sees in you,' he shot back.

'Well I could show you, but I'd hate to make the rest of you feel inadequate…'

'For god's sake, Phantom - shut up. If anyone puts _anything_ on the table for measuring I'll shoot it off.' Mamoru glared at the pair of them. Tochiro sniggered, and turned it into a cough when Harlock glared at him. Maya wondered if anyone would mind if she knocked their heads together.

'For the hard of thinking then I'll skip a few centuries. Doppler operates out here in a manner similar to the way the ancient British East India company once did - an imperialistic monopoly slowly growing from a small operation moving goods between Earth and the Colonies, to a massive undertaking as big as a system-wide government, complete with its own army. And all of it under the command of one man, one family - although the "board" consists of several related family lines. They don't go to the tech worlds - the tech worlds come to _them_. Sometimes without even knowing who they're dealing with.'

'Hechi,' Tochiro interjected, looking sharply at Harlock. 'They were going to hand me over to Hechi, and despite his "dual citizenship", the hunchbacked freak is one of those pointy-eared supremacists.'

Harlock snorted. 'So much for physical perfection then. I've heard of their eugenics programme - I'm amazed they allowed him to live.'

'Actually, the scoliosis was acquired,' Manfred added. 'In his youth, he was a devilishly pretty young man. The spinal deformity was the result of working in microgravity for years with some experimental quantum fluids that together with the leaching effect of low gravity, damaged his bones. Whatever other accusations can be levelled at him, he is brilliant, and a workaholic. He refused to stop working long enough to get treatment, and started wearing the deformity as some kind of badge, to set him aside from the rest. The current head of the Family holds him up as a selfless example of their superior race - a man who puts the company and their race ahead of his own personal appearance and life.' He pulled a face. 'Apparently he's in demand with their artificial insemination programme.'

'Oh stop right there,' Tochiro muttered. 'I feel ill…'

'You'd prefer they were lining up outside his bedroom door?' Harlock asked him with a cheeky grin. Tochiro glared at him. 'You bastard… I've just eaten, and I can't unsee that image…' he shuddered theatrically.

Maya tried to ignore the banter, and fixed her eyes on the slowly rotating starfield on the table. 'Earth's in that range as well,' she said. She moved closer to the hologram and pointed, leaning over her brother's shoulder to do it. The low level chatter around the room fell silent, and she flushed as she felt all eyes on her.

'They'd never be that obvious, surely?' Manfred murmured quietly next to her ear.

Mamoru looked thoughtful. 'Zone Industries operates from the orbit of Jupiter and several of its moons,' he pointed out thoughtfully. He rubbed at his chin, which Maya noticed was starting to sport a good day's worth of light stubble. 'But they're in so thick with our government we'd need a lot of proof to take to the top level for any investigation. Remember what happened the last time we tried?'

'Nevich is down there,' Tochiro pointed out. When Mamoru started out of his chair and slammed his hands down on the table he gulped, and pushed his glasses back up his nose. He shot a quick glance at Harlock who mouthed something at him Maya couldn't make out. Presumably some variant on "idiot". She mentally added the small man to the list of those needing their heads banged together. Seven years ago Alexander Nevich had kidnapped Mamoru's wife and daughters, threatened to have them raped, tortured and murdered and added shooting Mamoru and Harlock in making his escape from an attempt to retrieve incriminating data about Zone Industries from Mamoru's computer. Neither of the brothers had any love for Nevich and his brother-in-law, the current head of the company. Even Miranda had been heard to mutter something about sharp knives when his name came up on the newsfeed from Mars. She waited, and watched Mamoru carefully, wondering how he'd react.

Despite the superficial differences between the brothers, they were, as she'd learned over the years, not as dissimilar as either of them liked to think. A dozen years or so lay between the old Count's bastard by-blow and his legitimate heir, and Mamoru could usually be relied on to rein in his younger sibling's recklessness. Harlock often accused his brother of being cold-blooded and something of a plodder, but whilst Mamoru lost his temper very seldom by comparison to the much hotter-headed Harlock, when it did blow, it did so with the same cryo-volcanic fury that her husband was feared for.

They both burned cold. And she saw it now, in the looks the brothers exchanged across the table. Harlock, dark haired, dark-eyed, a sly, one-sided smirk already playing at the corner of his mouth. Mamoru lighter haired, hazel-eyed, the same smile forming on a mouth she knew as a family marker - her boys had it as well. Richard, at five, could throw a tantrum with the best of them, and in a softer version she'd seen Aurora, Mamoru's eldest daughter, throw down with the best.

You did _not_ fuck with this family.

'Well then,' Mamoru said softly, sitting back down as though he hadn't a care in the world. From her vantage point next to her own brother's shoulder, she could see that his fingers gripped the edge of the desk so hard the knuckles were white. 'I think it might be to our advantage to make sure Alexei has a little talk with us, don't you?'

'A shame we don't have time to fetch Miranda,' Harlock added in his lazy drawl. 'She wants a few pieces of him to make up for the bits he shot off you…'

Mamoru smiled coldly. 'Well, I did promise her an anniversary present,' he replied in a matching drawl. Con Jones stared at his captain and choked slightly, and Komarova simply sat back in her chair and smiled like a shark scenting blood in the water.

'Does he mean it?' Manfred whispered into her ear. 'Shit… I'd kind of forgotten just how… intense… these guys can be.'

'Now do you see what I love about them?' Maya whispered back.

Manfred opened his mouth to reply, and closed it with a snap. He looked up at his sister, and the way she watched Mamoru - not Harlock - and bit back a reply. He glanced across the table and caught the troubled look on Tochiro's wide face, before the younger man plastered his usual amiable grin across it. _Guess I'm not the only one to notice that slip_ … He reached up and gave Maya's hand a quick squeeze, where it lay on his shoulder.

'What?'

'Nothing,' he replied. 'Just - if you ever need me, you know where I am, right? And if not me, then Marius and Marcus?'

She squeezed his hand back. 'You think I don't have enough testosterone in my life already?' she teased. Manfred raised her hand and kissed the knuckles gently, making her laugh. 'Oh, you… still protective, even now?'

'Marianne Rosenbach, I'm your big brother. I'll always be protective,' he assured her. 'Just ask our brothers.'

'On which note,' she leant closer to whisper, 'aren't they supposed to be coming to our aid?'

He grinned up at her, welcoming the distraction from the Harlock males. 'Hell yes. But they had a stop to make along the way.' At her puzzled look he smiled. 'Oh, come on, sis - you really think we'd go out all this way into enemy territory and not get back up?'

She pulled her hand back from his. 'Then where is it, hotshot?'

The commlink pinged, and Mamoru broke off from a noisy discussion between himself, Harlock, Tochiro and Komarova to answer it, raising his hand to ask for silence. 'Yes?'

'Signal coming in on the fleet frequency, Captain.' Montoya's voice over the comms always sounded an octave higher than it did in person. 'Captain - it's the _Shinano_!'

'Oh… that'll be fun.' Harlock sat back in his seat and laughed.

'Fun?' Con Jones asked eventually when it became apparent no-one was going to fill him in on the joke.

'It's the flagship of the Second Fleet,' Komarova explained, a twinkle in her eyes. 'Admiral Okita in command.'

'Any relation?' Jones asked, looking at his captain, who had developed a slightly dyspeptic frown. Most of the rest of the table were fighting back chuckles or sniggers.

'Yeah… you could say that,' Harlock told him, grinning from ear to ear. 'How is your mom these days, nii-san?'

Mamoru placed his head in his hands, pressed his fingertips against his temples, and didn't reply.


	12. Chapter 12

Safely tucked away in the radar shadow of the two moons of Dis, the little battleship resembling an oversized stag beetle lurked, powered down in that hidden point between three worlds - the hellish planet and her two attendants. They had an alpha-numerical catalogue designation, but the locals called them Erebus and Terror.

That the little battleship rejoiced in the name "Deathshadow" was, to her captain, just the icing on the cake. Names, he'd learned at the knee, had meaning. His parents had disagreed on many things but they had agreed on one thing - the meaning of his name, if not its actual sound. His father had favoured his own European roots with "Alexander". His mother had preferred her native Japanese and gone with "Mamoru". Both names carried the meaning of "protector".

That agreement had been a one-off. Even more than forty years after the fact, he still went by Mamoru, but the record of his birth in a long-buried record in a church register in Heiligenstadt read "Alexander".

He had won the fight eventually with his father over the matter. Round about the time the selfish bastard had placed an unexpectedly motherless little boy in the care of that little boy's sixteen year old bastard half-brother, and taken off on a one man flight around the world for six months in a replica of an ancient biplane to distance himself from his loss.

His mother, when she'd arrived on Earth on a furlough only to find the household at Schloss Greifenstein in uncharacteristic disorder, had sighed, muttered something about the thick-headedness of a certain former fighter jock of her acquaintance who'd seemingly never bothered to grow up, rolled her sleeves up and taken charge for the few weeks she had.

'Why do you keep picking up the pieces, if you hate him that much?' Mamoru had asked her one day, once little Albrecht was sleeping.

'I don't hate him,' Julia Okita had told her only child. 'If there's one thing it's very difficult to do with your father, it's hate him. Want to strangle him or shoot him on occasion, yes. But you might was well try to scream at the wind to stop blowing. He won't change. He's a beautiful, self-centred, unstoppable force of nature. Anyone who gets into his orbit is like a moth drawn to a flame. So help me, I know what he's like - I knew it when we were screwing like rabbits before we even graduated - but you can't take offence at a hurricane. You just pick up a broom and get to sweeping up the debris when it's done its thing.' She'd smiled fondly. 'But damn, he's one hell of a fuck…'

'Mother!'

She'd laughed at his embarrassed response. And again only a few years later when instead of meeting her expectations that the apple wouldn't fall far from the tree, he'd married the 'girl next door' and never so much as looked at another woman. Her reaction to him mustering out after graduation to do so however hadn't been anywhere near as amused, and despite how much she adored her grand-daughters, it was still, more than twenty years after the fact, a sore point between them. Both sides of his family tree had long, proud military histories and he'd pointedly refused to live up to either of them.

An elbow in the ribs brought him back to the present with a grunt. 'Stand straight for god's sake,' Harlock whispered urgently into his right ear. 'She'll have a go at both of us if you slouch.'

'What are you? My drill sergeant?' he whispered back. He eyed up his brother's ensemble - shoe-horned into the spare uniform Mamoru had packed on the off chance that it would act as a kind of lucky charm, and towering over his brother in all his bottle-green glory, hair neatly brushed for once, if still touching the top of his fixed-ring collar. Harlock looked magnificent. Not even the cuts and bruises he sported on his face distracted much from that uncanny beauty, but he always held himself as though he was totally unaware of the fact.

 _A beautiful, self-centred, unstoppable force of nature_ …

Mamoru undid another button to let his jacket open further to reveal the skull and crossbones painted on the front, and ostentatiously rolled his sleeves up a little further. He ignored the booted toe that kicked his ankle.

'Well at least it won't be me she hauls over the coals,' he heard his brother mutter.

'I'm a civilian,' he shot back. 'What's she going to do to me?'

Harlock opened his mouth to make a pithy reply, and shut it with a snap as the docking tube began to iris open. It's curved petal-like sections slid back into the walls to reveal a striking woman with shoulder length, iron grey hair, wearing the Gaia Fleet uniform of a full admiral. At around five foot seven, the admiral was a lot shorter than the two men waiting for her in the corridor, but had a way of looming to fill the space which far exceeded her build. Julia Okita was stocky and looked a good twenty years or so younger than the almost seventy she had on paper. She looked both men up and down, frowned, clasped her hands behind her back and grunted.

'Admiral.' Mamoru saluted.

'Aunt Julia.' Harlock didn't.

'That would be "mum" to you, and "admiral" or "sir" to you,' she snapped at each in turn. They both tried unsuccessfully to hold back grins. 'Good grief - look at the state of you… Mamoru - how many times do I have to tell you to fasten your jacket and roll your sleeves down? And Albrecht... brawling with your men again?'

'Getting your ship shot out from under you, enslaved, beaten up and half killed trying to escape will do that to someone,' he drawled.

'Is that all?' She arched a silver eyebrow. 'The way I heard it you also managed to blow up the planet.'

'Not yet,' Mamoru muttered alongside Harlock's "not exactly". He fiddled with his cuffs but made no effort to unroll them.

She tutted. 'Just like your father.'

'I think she means you,' Harlock murmured, just loud enough for his voice to carry.

'No, I'm sure she means you,' Mamoru stage-whispered back.

'Oh dear god… the two of you are like five-year-olds when you're together.' The admiral eyed them up in turn. 'And that's one for the family album - the officer dressed like a pirate and the pirate dressed like an officer… I should send you both off to exchange clothes.'

'His won't fit me,' Harlock pointed out in his most reasonable tone.

Okita snorted. 'Well maybe you should think about working out a bit more instead of lounging around in seedy backwater dives getting pissed on the stuff I use to strip-clean machine parts. Tell me - does he still skip meals?' she asked her son.

' _Starved_ , beaten and half-killed,' Harlock retorted plaintively before Mamoru could reply.

'My dear boy, you've never kept enough weight on you to afford missing even _one_ meal,' the admiral told him sniffily.

'If I'd eaten the portions you used to put in front of me, I'd be the size of a small whale,' he muttered. 'I mean, just look at this one…' he poked his brother in the ribs. 'Twenty years of Miranda's home cooking haven't helped either.'

Mamoru slapped away the offending digit as they walked. 'It's all muscle, brat.'

'Keep telling yourself that, if it makes you feel better, old man…'

'Oh for pete's sake…' The admiral bulled her way between the pair and strode off down the corridor. 'I believe the captain's room is this way?' she called back over her shoulder. She vanished around the next corner and the pair turned to grin at each other.

'Was that an all time record?' Harlock asked. 'I forgot to set the stopwatch, but I think that was less than three minutes from arrival to flounce…'

'Not if we're counting that time at the opera house in Bayreuth…' Mamoru deadpanned.

'Nope. That was an accident. Doesn't count.'

'Fair enough. How long do we give her to make herself at home in my office?'

Harlock pretended to think about it. 'Three, two, one…' he counted under his breath.

'Mamoru! Albrecht!' The bellow could probably have been heard on the bridge without the benefit of a loudspeaker. 'Yep, that should do it!' he finished breezily. 'Aren't you coming?' he asked when Mamoru hesitated to follow him.

'Just wondering if I should let her tear a strip off you first for losing your damned ship and crew before I come in for the "illegal intrusion into enemy territory" talk.'

Mamoru was leaning against the wall, doing his best to feign a nonchalant pose, hands in pockets, ankles crossed. Harlock took the couple of paces it took for his long legs to cover the distance between them and leaned over his brother, hands placed on the wall on either side of his head. 'You. Are. Supposed. To. Be. My. Big, protective, brother,' he enunciated with painstaking clarity.

'You're bigger than me. I'll hide behind you.'

'She's _your_ mother!' A note of exasperation creeping in.

'She's _your_ superior officer…' They glared at each other.

A scuffing noise behind them made both men turn around. Tochiro was strolling towards them, smiling beatifically. 'Hey - was that Auntie Jules I just heard? Cool. I was hoping she'd come over in person. Aren't you two coming, or were you planning to stand in that "I'm about to snog you senseless" pose all morning?' He sniggered when Harlock backpedaled away from Mamoru with a speed he usually only reserved for joining in a bar fight. He'd scuttled down the corridor and around the corner before his friend could grab him.

'Oh, marvellous. Now we'll have to get a move on if only to stop him from blurting the whole sorry tale out in a way that makes us all look like total idiots,' Harlock grumbled. Mamoru slapped him lightly between the shoulder blades.

'Buck up. She never gets mad at _him_.'

Harlock just _looked_. 'Seriously. You want to bet our respective hides on that chance?'

They exchanged glances, straightened the hems of their jackets with a tug, and set off down the corridor at a fast jog.

* * *

Julia Okita sat back in her son's command chair and folded her arms. She stared at the both through the glasses she'd recently started to use in deference to her age finally catching up with her eyes. Handsome boys, the pair of them. And despite their ages she'd never really think of them as anything but her boys, even if her own son now had silver in his sandy brown hair, and Sebastian's legitimate heir had to stoop to get through most doorways.

It didn't help that like most of the family, they had a distressing tendency to never really grow up. Even Mamoru, who by the standards of Sebastian's family tree was a solid, dependable father and upright citizen, had moments when she clearly saw the legacy of his father's utterly uncontrollable nature. Albrecht, on the other hand, had moments when he had the _occasional_ flash of dependability...

Putting the two together on a battleship in the middle of a spectacularly nasty Charlie-Foxtrot of epic proportions was just asking for trouble. Which she could have told anyone who'd bother to ask. She had - on and off, her assignments allowing - raised the pair of them after all.

She found herself wishing that Sanada had been able to leave his damned sickbed and get his arse out here to manage the pair. Dropping them in her lap was just plain sadistic and she had every intention of telling him that. At length. Assuming they survived the next few days…

'So let me get this straight… you two -' here a hard stare down her nose at Harlock and Tochiro, both of whom had chairs in deference to their still damaged condition - 'find out there's a plot to ambush Sanada's fleet, rush to the rescue, manage to hold the line long enough to get them away only to get caught in the crossfire from this strange new weapon. Picked up by wreckers picking over the carcasses, shipped off to a secret facility which just happens to be mining and refining the raw materials for these and possibly other experimental weapons, escape in a -' another pause, and a disbelieving headshake '-sand submersible using a new quantum field engine, and in the course of trying to make it to the spaceport inadvertently blow up another submersible and trigger the super volcano the spaceport sits on. How am I doing so far?'

'Well it sounded better when we told Mamoru…' Tochiro replied brightly. Not even the quelling look from the admiral was enough to put a damper on his runaway mouth. Nor the kick Harlock aimed at his ankle, which he deftly avoided by lifting his feet out of the way.

'And you…' The admiral turned her attention to her son, leaning against the far wall doing his best to look inconspicuous and at an inch or so over six feet, failing miserably, '... allow Oyama and Sanada to talk you into taking one of their prototypes halfway across the galaxy to look for these two…' she raised a hand to stop him from speaking and he snapped his mouth closed with an audible click of his teeth. 'Don't give me that flannel about the weapon. Sanada might very well think that but I know the old man better than that. He'd have told Sanada where to stick it if not for losing his best engineer and his craziest test pilot. Both of them were out of order and you bloody well know it. Sanada didn't have the authority to send you whatever the cover story, and Oyama didn't have authority full stop. If you're caught you risk being shot on sight as a spy, and your crew with you.'

'I didn't have to be talked into anything,' Mamoru said quietly. 'I'd have taken the Deathsh-'

'Stop!' Okita's raised hand cut him off mid-sentence again. 'Do _not_ finish that sentence in my hearing, Mamoru-chan. What I don't hear, I don't have to lie about later.' She sighed. 'As it is they'll probably have to give all three of you a bloody medal after this.'

'I'm a civilian…' Mamoru began. His mother glared at him down her nose.

'Do _not_ trade on that little get out of gaol free card too often, Mamoru. That's a situation that can be remedied at any time.'

'I'm too old to be conscripted,' he pointed out. She snorted.

'Not the way things are going, my lad. You'd be better off keeping your head down and your name out of dispatches from this point on.'

'Like _that's_ going to happen,' Harlock muttered.

'Not helping, Albrecht,' the admiral told him firmly.

' _Harlock_.'

'Not according to your identity papers it isn't.'

'I think we can agree _all_ of us might need to keep a low profile,' Mamoru interjected smoothly, wondering if anyone would notice if he gave his baby brother a much needed boot up the arse before he found himself busted down to ensign. 'But time's getting short if we want to put a lid on this situation. Mum - I know there's not much you can do officially, but Doppler's minions are running a major operation on this planet, and from the look of it, there's not much doubt this is the source of the rare earth and refined condensates being used to make the control circuits and containment fields for this plasma weapon. They also have several Earth fleet personnel used as slave labour down there, so we do have a reason to go in - it's blatant breach of the Article of Military Conduct.'

'By a private corporation, registered in colonial space, in an area we technically have no jurisdiction,' Admiral Okita pointed out. She sighed and reached for a bottle and tumbler that had lurked near her elbow since she'd sat down. 'Doppler and Zone also have close ties, and I don't need to remind any of you how tricky that gets. Zone's an arse, as is that CEO, Nevich, but between them they have a lot of golfing buddies on the council. Which means if - and I do mean "if" - we take this operation down, it has to go down completely, and we'll need cast iron proof Zone and Nevich are in this - if they're colluding with enslaving fleet personnel, I want to be sure we have them by the balls and they can't wriggle out of this on a technicality this time…'

'I can do that,' Mamoru and Tochiro said in concert. They shared a smile.

'...and it will have to be surgical. No grandstanding…' and here she aimed her glare at Harlock who shuffled slightly in his seat but said nothing. 'And nothing to say you were even here if it goes tits up. No uniforms, no ids. I can't even stay around to help you - I need to take my ships back to El Alamein and try to take out that plasma launcher. You're right about that - it's not a weapon anyone in their right mind wants in the wrong hands.'

'It's an indiscriminate weapon of mass destruction,' Harlock added, 'and in the wrong hands, as Mamoru pointed out, it's a planet killer.' His eyes narrowed. 'I hope no-one's thinking of "liberating" it and taking it home.'

'Not on my watch,' Mamoru replied. He kept a close eye on his mother's face, but saw nothing to suggest she felt any differently. Inwardly he sighed with relief. That was the problem with the military sometimes… the use of such a weapon would be all too appealing to many. His mother's integrity wasn't in doubt, but she was, in the end, a product of her training.

Even so, he still felt a tiny niggle at the back of his mind that refused to go away. He pushed it aside for now. One problem at a time. 'Closer to hand, Doppler Corp are already moving ships into position to evacuate. Do we let them go?'

'Not with our people on board,' Harlock growled.

Admiral Okita nodded slowly. 'I'd rather not - but it's down to "low profile". It wouldn't do for the Deathshadow to attack them - you'd be quite justifiably accused of piracy. And I can't leave ships with you to take them out. If fired upon, you can of course fire back - but under no circumstances are you to engage first, and I would prefer it if you didn't cause too many casualties. Plausible deniability, Mamoru.'

'That, I can do,' he replied with a small smile.

The admiral eyed her son up appraisingly. 'Your overall plan for the ground assault is somewhat risky,' she added, 'but under the circumstances it might be the only option.' She glared again at Harlock. 'You - try not to get your brother killed. Or maimed.' She leaned forward and leaned her chin on her hands, elbows on the table. 'You don't have the personnel to mount an attack, so I will leave you with about a dozen marines - I should be able to persuade that many to take some vacation days. And I'm leaving them under Mamoru's command,' she continued, raising a hand to forestall Harlock's objection before he could finish opening his mouth. 'Argue with me, captain, and you'll be hauling ass back to El Alamein with my fleet. I could use an assistant - mine's on maternity leave.'

Tochiro sniggered and quickly tried to turn it into a cough.

'You, however, are coming back with me.'

'Wha-? Wait - what? Why?' Tochiro's spluttering was mirrored by Harlock's. Mamoru's eyes met his mother's, and he nodded his understanding.

'Because someone has to take a good hard look at those rings and that plasma cannon, and work out how best to take it out,' Mamoru told him. 'It makes sense.' It also kept their best engineer and the one person the Nibelung trusted with their tech safer than letting him charge into the fray on Dis. Not something even Harlock could argue with, once he'd thought it through. Which he would. He was always protective of Tochiro.

The man in question however was frowning, deep in thought. 'I'm not sure you'll be able to, from what I've seen of Mamoru's footage and readings. It might be better to wait for the _Deathshadow_.'

'Any particular reason?' the admiral asked.

'Because… well… not to put too fine a point on it we did kinda fiddle around a bit with some of the stuff the Nibelung were showing us.'

'There's no dark matter engine on board is there?' Mamoru felt a little queasy at the thought.

'Nah. That'd need one of 'em to operate. But we did add some of the tech, and the ship has been parked on the docking rig next to the new ships for months. You could say it sorta rubs off…'

'Dark matter.' Okita stated flatly. 'Your pet project on Titan…' Both Harlock and Tochiro nodded. Mamoru felt like banging the back of his head against the wall, but settled for counting to ten before speaking.

'How does that help?'

'We charged the weapons with it. It negates plasma - or rather the excited quantum fluctuations of the photons. Like a fire extinguisher, only…'

'Bigger.' Harlock finished for Tochiro. 'It should also protect the _Deathshadow_ against the plasma - she's been absorbing dark matter for months. Her hull's impregnated with it - you might have noticed she's a lot easier to patch up with her rolling hull-printer than most ships.'

He had, as it happened. He'd put it down to Tochiro's brilliance. 'Mother?'

She sighed and stood up, pushing her chair back from the desk. 'He has a point. But I'm still taking him with me. Mop up here, grab what you can, and we'll wait for you outside the system. _Deathshadow's_ significantly faster than the _Shinano_ or anything else in my fleet, so we won't be far ahead of you unless something goes horribly wrong.'

Mamoru sauntered over to open the door for her. 'You're not staying?'

'Can't. As you pointed out, we're up against it. Once you two start raising hell down there, I'm pretty sure they'll find a way to warn Shaitan, and that's far too close for comfort. Unless you can jam the communications?'

'I've got Maya working on it.' He kept pace with his mother's shorter legs as they walked. Behind, he could just make out the sounds of Tochiro complaining about being frog-marched off the ship sans Harlock as the pair headed off in the direction of their temporary quarters.

'Hmmph. I notice he wasn't begging me to take _her_ off your hands and out of this…'

'Out of the frying pan?' Mamoru offered, defending his brother. Truthfully he'd had the same thought, but there wasn't much to choose between the two options, and the third - that Justinian might have been able to rustle up a ship and another of her brothers to take her off, wasn't likely given that the Rosenbachs were currently tied up on Destiny attempting to find a way out of the most recent impasse. They'd been lucky Manfred had been able to arrange for them to contact the Second Fleet. 'Besides,' he continued, 'I need her here. She really does know her way around surveillance and communications, as well as crypto. Who knew Phantom would pick a girl with a brain?'

Another snort. 'Well one of you had to.'

That stopped him in his tracks and he had to take a deep breath before he spoke. 'Don't do that. You know I hate it.'

She stopped and turned to face him. 'Really? We're doing this again?'

'You brought it up. Miranda's not some ball-breaking, career obsessed executive, but so what?'

'You could have done better.'

'I love her.'

'I like kittens - doesn't mean I want to be surrounded by them twenty-four seven and make every major choice in my life all about them. I might have understood if you'd gotten her pregnant and felt you had to do the decent thing...'

... _like dad didn't_? He thought, but wisely didn't say out loud. Instead he carried on walking, forcing her to keep up with him. 'You still don't get it, do you?' he asked softly, determined not to rise to the bait this time. It was always ugly, when she brought up this particular subject. Sometimes he thought it was because she saw it as a slap in the face, for both her lover and her son to marry women who were her polar opposite. 'You, and dad, and poor Henriette - it could be toxic at times. I just wanted something different for myself. Miri… she cares more about others than herself. You see her grace and her beauty and serenity as something weak? It's a _strength_ , mother.

'You didn't see her when Nevich's men shoved a gun in her face and threatened to rape and murder her and our daughters. She didn't collapse in a corner crying and waiting to be rescued - she kept her head, and tried to keep the girls safe. She'd die - and kill - to protect them. She keeps the family together when I'm not there - _all_ of it - mine, Phantom's, Tochiro's… she's the one the staff on the estate look to. Half the town comes to her for advice - so don't you _dare_ look down on her because she doesn't solve problems by beating the crap out of people, or because she's happy running Schloss Greifenstein instead of taking a role on the Arcadia Engineering board or in its labs. My wife is plenty smart enough - she just doesn't see the point in trampling over other people to prove it.'

They were almost at the docking point, and the iris was open, revealing the long umbilical leading back to the _Shinano_. He nodded curtly in the direction of the opening. 'You know the way, mother.'

'Mamoru…'

He turned and began to walk away. 'I'm not doing this now, mother. We'll talk later. I'm tired of always having this argument. Right now I'm really not in the mood.'

He half expected her to call him back, but the only sound he could hear was the soft metallic clunk of their boots on the floor. Around the corner, he allowed himself to lean against the wall, and ran his fingers through his hair with a soft sigh, before straightening up and striding out in the direction of his rooms.

* * *

His brother was waiting for him when he arrived, seated in his chair, booted feet up on the table. For once, he couldn't be bothered to slap the offending black leather, and took the chair opposite. Harlock took his feet off the desk anyway, and pushed over a tumbler and the bottle. A half-filled glass already nestled in his right hand. 'You look like you need this. I'm guessing you had _that_ argument again?'

Mamoru took both tumbler and bottle, but only filled the former with a finger width of the whiskey, which he then downed in one. 'That predictable?'

Harlock shrugged. 'She's like a dog with a Miranda shaped bone. I've never known her let a single visit pass without mentioning it at some point. You'd think she'd be over it after more than twenty years…' He reached for the bottle. 'She wants you back in uniform,' Harlock used his tumbler to point at his brother before downing the contents. 'That much is clear. I think she was kind of hopeful this time, seeing you out here, doing the whole battleship captain thing.' When Mamoru stared into the bottom of his tumbler, turning it this way and that to watch the scintillating scattered light that refracted through the remains of the amber whiskey, he leaned forwards. 'Dear god - don't tell me you _have_ considered it?'

'She was right about one thing - conscription is a very real possibility now. Even for men my age. Even more so since I once held a commission. I find myself wondering if I should jump before I'm pushed - at least that way I might…'

'...control the fall?'

The brothers shared a wry smile. Mamoru placed his tumbler on the desk and sighed. 'Sufficient unto the day... ' he quoted softly. 'We have places to be, baby brother. Think you can take orders for once?'

'Hell no. Why do you even ask?' Harlock got to his feet. 'On which note I need to raid your armoury. I feel naked without a weapon…'

Mamoru stood, stretched, and made his way round to his own side of the desk. 'Move it,' he ordered with a smile. 'I knew there was something I needed to give you.' He reached underneath it and brought out a long metal storage box, placing it on the table gently. 'These, I believe, are yours?' He stepped away to allow his brother to open the box.

Inside, on a foam tray, lay Harlock's gravity sabre and his colt dragoon. His own Cosmo Eagle lay snugly against his left hip. He watched as Harlock lifted the Cosmo Dragoon from its resting place, and half pulled the pistol from its replacement holster. 'I thought these were gone for good,' he said softly. His hand brushed the butt of the pistol gently, and he slid it back into the holster smoothly. 'When they took these from us…'

'Manfred's people found them at a black market arms bazaar.' Mamoru waited whilst Harlock buckled on the pistol, settled it, and then reached for the sabre. 'That was our first clue you might have been taken alive - or at least that the Yukikaze wasn't totally destroyed.' The sabres were notoriously unwieldy. Mamoru reached out a hand and took the gun belt from his brother's hands. 'Oh for pity's sake… you always make a hash of this…' he fed the belt around Harlock's slim waist and fastened it in place, aware of the amused smile on the younger man's face.

'So now you're my squire?'

'Don't get any ideas,' Mamoru huffed at him. 'There. As neat and tidy as you'll ever be.'

Harlock settled the sabre into place alongside his leg, shifting the hilt slightly. 'That's better.' He met Mamoru's gaze with his own, the humour rapidly fading. 'So - when do we start?'

'Right about now,' Mamoru replied grimly. 'Didn't someone say Nevich was down there?'

'Oh yeah…' Harlock's smile returned with a fiendish, anticipatory twist of his top lip. 'Just remember - we're supposed to bring him back alive?'

Mamoru didn't reply, just turned and walked out of the room, the door hissing softly as it open and closed behind him. Harlock stared at the closed door for a moment and shook his head. 'Well… accidents happen, I guess.' The corner of his lip twitched again. 'Go get the bastard, aniki. I won't tell if you won't…'

Rather more slowly and stiffly than Mamoru had, since several bruises and strains were making themselves felt, he strode after his brother.


	13. Chapter 13

Con Jones checked and rechecked the power pack for his pistol before slamming the cartridge home one last time into the butt and sliding it into its holster along his thigh.

'If it was full two minutes ago and you didn't fire it…'

Con looked up at the tall figure beside him. Not a small man himself, at a shade over six feet, he wasn't used to looking up another five or six inches to look a man in the eyes. 'Everyone finds something to fiddle with when they're waiting,' he pointed out in his best reasonable tone. 'I fiddle with my gun. You keep running your finger along the inside of your collar as though you've got a bit sticking into you that you haven't had time to file down yet. Although you alternate with rubbing that scar on your face,' he added when the lanky young captain self-consciously pulled his hand off the metal ring of his helmet attachment and did just that. He nodded in the direction of the corner of the hangar where Mamoru Okita was briefing a burly slab of beef with a much broken nose and eyebrow ridges that would have not been out of place on a mountain gorilla. 'How come he's in charge of the knuckle-draggers and not you?'

'Plausible deniability,' Harlock replied tersely. 'Officially, they're not here.'

'So if they're taking orders from a civilian they're not here, but if they're under the command of a full-fledged captain…' Con raised both eyebrows and let out a "huh". 'Is the Council really that gullible?'

'Not really, but it's down to what's recorded. If it doesn't have a paper trail, it doesn't exist.' He moved away, his long legs taking him over to where Okita was talking to the marines. Not so fast that it was obvious that he wasn't keen on talking, but Con got the point. 'Sheesh…' he murmured.

'It's not personal. He even does it to me.'

Maya had glided to his side - no mean feat in standard issue vacuum boots on a metal floor. He looked at her and grinned. 'Now I don't believe that for an instant - I'd be hard put to ignore you.'

'Oh, I didn't say he ignored me… he's just not one for talking and has a habit of blanking people without even thinking about it.' Her low contralto had a way of bypassing a man's higher faculties and heading straight for his libido. He let a slow smile curl at the edges of his lips.

'Well now… it's still rude and any man who isn't giving you his entire attention simply doesn't deserve you.' She was standing against the wall and he placed one hand on it, beside her head; close, but not touching, although the long fall of her silken, golden hair was a temptation of mythical proportions.

'Any man other than my husband giving me his undivided attention has a death wish,' she replied with a smile. Con ducked out of the way with reflexes honed on a dozen different worlds and in a hundred different bars, narrowly avoiding Harlock's hand as it reach for his collar. 'Just being friendly…' he offered. Stormy dark eyes and a scowl suggested that he knew what he could do with "friendly", but Constantine Jones came from a long line of blond haired, blue-eyed chancers, brawlers and charmers, and the line of his ancestors would have collectively facepalmed in shame at one of their own standing down. He jabbed a finger into a surprisingly broad chest. 'Wouldn't kill you to loosen up a bit, you lanky bugger. Your lady here is beautiful, smart, sassy and a pleasure to talk to. You could take a few lessons.' He glared belligerently into those dark eyes, but the other man's steady, unblinking and frankly downright disturbing gaze forced him to look away first despite his resolve.

He didn't however miss the slight twitch of amusement that flickered at the corner of that sensual mouth.

'Harlock!' Mamoru's voice cut across the frosty silence, and Con let out a tiny huff of relief as that petrifying gaze was directed elsewhere. 'Quit toying with my crew like some overgrown kitten, please. If you must psychologically eviscerate someone, save it for our foes…'

That sinful mouth curled up slightly into a smile so briefly, Con might have been forgiven for thinking he'd have missed it if he'd blinked. He strolled over towards his captain and the commander of the marine detachment with as much nonchalance as he could muster, as though that had been his plan all along; and it might have granted him a brief respite if not for the overgrown kitten trailing after him with an equally studied stroll.

Ever a glutton for punishment, he couldn't resist. He stopped, turned, and flicked both hands at his dark shadow. 'Shoo!'

Tall dark and handsome enough to make an oft-declared single-sex attraction think twice just blinked, raised one elegant dark eyebrow into his not inconsiderable, non-regulation hairline and _smiled_.

Con's libido tapped on his shoulder and asked if it could change its vote to "all of the above". Flushing, he stepped back and allowed the lanky bastard to walk past him with the air of someone who owned the ground he walked on and the air he breathed, and fully expected everyone else to acknowledge it as an immutable fact.

'It's not personal,' Maya said softly, next to his ear. 'He does it to me as well…'

Con turned to look at her, took one look at that lovely face and the oh-so-innocent smile and couldn't stop a snigger escaping. It earned him another scathing glare from her husband which he ignored. 'Cute,' he told her. 'Real cute… good god, no man should have that… that…' his hands flailed around for the lost words.

'Sex appeal?' Maya asked, still all innocence.

'You did _not_ hear _me_ say that,' Con told her flatly, trying to stitch his composure and his sexual identity back together. She laughed and moved on, and he consoled himself by staring at the way her firm, full ass moved with such elegant restraint, lovingly hugged by white leather, her hair swaying as she moved, its long fall ending just before the point where…

'Jones? Any time you've stopped staring at my sister-in-law's arse?' Okita called out.

He joined the small group, making sure he kept a couple of marines between the lanky fleet captain and his own precious body, although there wasn't anyone tall enough to block that wine-dark stormy glare. He settled for using Okita as a wall.

'Con - fight your own battles,' Mamoru murmured as Jones shuffled uncomfortably at his side. 'Keep flirting with Maya and I _won't_ get between you…'

'Stick with us, blondie,' the neanderthal snickered, as it slapped Con on the shoulder. 'We'll protect ya from the pretty fly-boy!'

Con shot Mamoru a filthy look as the older man stepped between sergeant cave-man and his brother. 'Oh. Right… you protect the muscle-bound _marine…'_ he griped.

'What I'd like is for all of you to settle down.' When the principals subsided with much muttering and glaring, but hands came off pistols or uncurled from fists, Mamoru sighed. 'Better.' Not for the first time in his life, Mamoru blessed the fact he only had daughters: hair-pulling was far easier to deal with than rampant testosterone poisoning. 'Sergeant Satou here and her people…' at this point he'd have loved to have banged at least two heads together since both his brother and his security officer apparently lacked a poker face - or the manners to even try not to do a double-take - 'will take point, and secure the base once we're in. Our job - myself, Con and Harlock - is to locate the main computer servers and retrieve as much information as we can. To that end we'll be trying to stay out of the way of the sergeant's people, and out of trouble.'

'I should go with you - you'll need someone to handle the decryption…' Maya began.

'Like hell…' Manfred, lurking in a corner.

'Absolutely not!' Mamoru, glaring.

'Over my dead body!' Harlock, on the verge of stepping forwards and probably giving her a good shake.

Mamoru and Harlock exchanged nods over her head but it was the older brother who spoke: 'Sorry, Maya - you and Komarova are needed up here - I need you scanning for incoming IDFs and keep jamming the broadcast from the planet - as well as monitoring for news of that imminent eruption.' She pouted, but nodded, and he breathed a sigh of relief. 'I don't need to field-decrypt the data - it's a smash and grab,' he explained gently. He turned back to the assembled marines. 'The ship carries eight small atmospheric to space craft, and we'll fit in two of them. The rest will be on standby for refugees, and in case we have problems with the sandblasting from those lower atmospheric winds. Con will pilot half the marine contingent down, Harlock will pilot number two with myself and the rest. Sergeant?'

'Why me?' Con muttered out of the side of his mouth as he filed past Mamoru, behind the massed wall of green fatigues. Since the comment didn't appear to warrant a reply, Mamoru checked over his cosmo eagle whilst he waited for the deck to clear.

'Never mind that,' his brother said quietly once they were alone. 'You need armour.'

'So do you,' Mamoru retorted. He shoved the oversized hand cannon back into its holster with a practiced move. 'But then we weren't exactly equipped for…' he stared as Harlock reached down for a pack he hadn't noticed at his feet and pulled out two marine issue flak vests. He dangled one in front of Mamoru who smiled and pulled off his jacket so that he could put it on over his sweater. 'What about Con?'

'Jones? The marines will take care of him. I just figured personal protection wouldn't loom large on your radar - you don't make a career out of being shot at, after all.'

'And a hotshot test pilot for a civilian contractor would do so, _how_ …?'

Harlock grinned at him. 'You do know that bits come off those prototypes at high velocity, right?' A feminine cough from behind was a timely reminder that airing such sentiments in front of his wife probably wasn't such a good idea. 'Allegedly,' he added, far too late to do any good.

'Maybe I should be the one making _you_ stay behind where it's safe,' Maya said as he placed a hand on her cheek. She leaned into the gesture. 'Take care of each other,' she told both men. Harlock placed a gentle kiss on her cheek and walked away quickly. Mamoru gave her a quick hug.

'Stay on those frequencies,' he added as he released her. 'If we're having company…'

'Trust me. I don't want to lose either of you.'

He hesitated, as though he wanted to say something, then nodded and walked away, leaving her alone in the hangar. With a heavy heart, she turned and made her way back to the bridge.

Somewhere along the way her brother fell into step beside her, and for once she didn't feel like pushing the over-protective arse away when he dropped an arm over her shoulders.

* * *

The third tremor in an hour shook the base, and Victor braced himself against the wall until it subsided. Lips compressed into a hard line, almost bloodless, he stared at the readings on the console in front of him. The hapless technician seated at it swallowed uneasily. 'How long?' he snapped.

'Hard to say, sir. We got gravimeter readings from the magma chamber that suggest it's filling up rapidly. The caldera is already bulging, and the spaceport will be unusable by this time tomorrow. I wouldn't recommend using the beanstalk after this last load reaches orbit.'

'Fine. Disengage once the current payload is offloaded. Clear the spaceport and have the personnel ferried out to that sheltered point behind the shield wall. Bring down the carrier's shuttles to pick them up.'

'And abandon the equipment?' Nevich sneered. 'Do you have any idea how much that costs?'

'To the credit. But it takes far longer to train good staff than to rebuild a generic ground control centre. Now if you've got nothing better to do than criticise, for fuck's sake get out of my sight and find somewhere else to be. There are still some women left in the seraglio - go stick your cock in something and stay out of my way.' Victor ran a hand through his hair, wondering if he'd have any left by the time he'd got on top of this mess. Nevich's angry spluttering he ignored, although he was getting tempted to just shoot the idiot. He really, really needed to take out his irritation on someone, and since he couldn't put his hands on that lanky fleet captain and his deformed sidekick, Nevich might do nicely, and to hell with the consequences. 'Where are we with decommissioning the cold atom chambers and the ore factory?'

The technician he addressed cleared his throat. 'Almost done, sir. The delicate equipment went up in the first three carriers. Now it's just the heavy equipment - the drills and crushers…'

'Leave those. They're cheap enough to replace. Priority to be given to the rare earth processing systems. Personnel?'

'Just the workforce left, and the masked men, apart from the technical staff.'

Another tremor shook the base and Victor swore under his breath. Nevich was a little pithier in his response, having failed to hold onto something, and had to pick himself off the floor. He dusted himself down with a glare aimed at anyone who looked at him. Victor sighed. Perhaps letting the little shit go up in the first shuttle might have been a better idea than making the pissant little ass suffer after all…

The next tremor that rocked the facility was accompanied by a loud explosion.

'What the…?' Nevich overbalanced again and slammed into one of the consoles. Victor noted with some satisfaction that he stood upright gingerly fondling his ribcage.

'Report?' He himself was _not_ going to let the situation rattle him.

'Unknown, sir. The camera feed in that corridor is offline.'

'That didn't sound like an earthquake…' Nevich adjusted his tinted glasses and tugged on his lapels. A hand brushed disdainfully at the dust on his black jacket.

'Sixty-two?' The masked man so addressed stepped forward silently. 'Take a team. Investigate.' The masked man bowed and departed, the doors irising silently behind him. Victor turned back to the tech monitoring the situation. 'What about the next set of cameras?'

'That's the strange thing, sir - they're all going offline. Getting a feed now.'

A video appeared on the screen, very briefly before the feed was lost. A bare corridor, then…

'Son of a bitch.' Victor narrowed his eyes and glared at the hissing white noise on the screen. The he smiled grimly. 'It looks as though the rescue party has arrived…'

'What?' Nevich peered over his shoulder, as though he could make anything out of the static.

'Harlock and what look like a few burly fleet marines. Replay the footage.'

The tech complied, and Victor stared silently at the small group of men running down the corridor in the few seconds before someone raised a rifle and shot the camera. 'Follow them on the rest of the network - don't lose them. Mobilise the masked corps - I want guards on all the approaches to the main facility. And get online with the transport fleet - we're moving up the timetable.'

'I want to be on the next flight,' Nevich snapped. He pointed at the screen. 'Get me on it, now.'

Victor smiled coldly. 'Didn't anyone ever tell you to ask nicely? Why would I do that?'

Nevich had gone very pale, he noticed. It was rather gratifying to see the pompous ass sweating. 'Because I recognise that man running alongside Harlock - the tall one.'

Victor had the tech freeze-frame the image and zoom in. Tall, as Nevich had said, though shorter than the man beside him. Well-built, with sandy brown hair. Could have been anywhere between thirty-five and forty-five.

He took a closer look. The mouth… nose… chin… 'Interesting. This must be the older brother? The by-blow?'

'Victor - this is not the time to stand around watching. That man wants my head on a platter…'

'Shut up, Alexei.'

'But…'

Victor ignored the spluttering. 'He doesn't want mine on a platter. And frankly, that's all I care about.' He smiled beatifically as a thought occurred to him. 'Although you're right - we should take you somewhere that's likely to be less of a target. Thirty-seven?'

Another masked figure stepped forward. 'Commander?'

'Escort Mr. Nevich here to the security section.'

'Harken…' Nevich tried and failed to shake off the grip the masked man had on his arm. 'What…'

'Via the east block.' He tuned out the protests as Nevich was pushed and pulled out of the room, spluttering and shouting. 'Finally, some peace and quiet…'

From his station leaning against the far wall, Danga snorted. 'Wasn't that intrusion in the east block?' he drawled.

Victor found a free seat and sat down with a sigh. 'You know, it might well have been.' His smile was shark-like now. 'I find I'm curious to see what the Harlock boys are made of. Let's see what happens when we dangle something in front of them, shall we?'

Danga snorted again. 'Really? He's right about one thing - we don't have time for this.'

Victor shrugged. 'Even a stopped clock is right once per day. Let them wear themselves out getting here through the masked men, and rescuing a few prisoners. They'll be easier to deal with then. For now, we concentrate on those last few shuttles, and keeping a path clear to a landing area. We have less of a window than I thought.' Another tremor shook the base. 'That young idiot really does have a talent for catastrophe,' he growled, annoyance finally getting the better of him. 'That supervolcano should have been safe for at least a few hundred years.'

'Makes you wonder what he'd be capable of if he actually put his back into it,' Danga dead-panned. He pushed himself off the wall with one smooth movement. 'I think I'll go and take a few men to oversee the defence. No offence, but I lack your confidence in Hechi's brainwashed drones.'

Victor waved him away vaguely. 'Fine. If it keeps you occupied.' He turned his attention back to the scanners. 'Try and steer Harlock and his men away from the evacuation areas - they probably have some ridiculous heroics planned about rescuing the workers, so leave a few doors open in the direction of the workers' quarters.'

Another screen went to static as he watched. He sighed. 'Really? Why are they wasting time shooting the cameras when we can track which way they're going by following the ones we're losing the feed for?' he tsked. 'Someone's been watching too many warp-feed dramas…'

Then all the screens were filled with white noise.

* * *

'Will you stop doing that?' Mamoru slapped down the pistol in the marine's hand as the man brought it up to fire at the fifth innocent camera in as many minutes. 'I rather think the loss of the feed is a pretty big giveaway as to which way we're heading, and by the time you've spotted it and shot out the lens, they've seen us.'

'But it's standard pro-'

'It's one too many daytime dramas,' Mamoru replied pithily. 'I didn't mind the first two times as it gave us a window. But I want them to see us. If they're looking at us, they aren't looking for Con.' He tapped his commlink. 'Jones?'

'Captain.' Jones's voice on the other end was fed to both Harlock and Mamoru via earpiece. The marines, on a separate channel, could only hear one side. 'Should be ready to go on your word.'

'Give me some static,' Mamoru ordered. At his side, Harlock grinned.

'You missed your calling, aniki. That's just nasty.'

'Misdirection is a wonderful thing. It makes things so much simpler when your opponent hasn't got a clue where you are or what you intend to do.' He gestured to the trigger happy marine. 'Stick your head around that next corner and tell me if the camera is still live.'

Moments after the marine had walked around the corner he came back at a run. 'To hell with the camera! There's five guys in metal masks armed with assault rifles heading this way!'

Harlock lifted the heavy cosmo dragoon and smiled at his brother. 'Shall we?' he drawled.

'Be rude not to,' Mamoru replied with an answering grin as cold as his brother's. Harlock's smiled widened.

'You know - you're starting to enjoy this just a little, aren't you? Admit it…'

Mamoru just hefted his cosmo eagle and aimed. 'What can I say? Blood will tell?' He fired as the first of the masked defenders came around the corner and the blast from his pistol sent a muscular, six foot tall masked figure flying several feet backwards, minus a head. 'That ought to make them think a little,' he quipped.

The next head around the corner fell to the dragoon. 'And yet, they don't learn... ' Harlock added, sharing a grim smile with his brother.

Then the masked men decided on a massed rush, and the time for light-hearted banter came to an unequivocal end...

* * *

Con Jones smirked as the readout on his portable little doo-hickey confirmed that the worm he'd introduced was busy doing what nature intended and working its way through the base's security system. 'That should do it,' he said with more than a little satisfaction. He unplugged his tablet and straightened from his bent position where he'd been leaning over the communications portal in the wall, almost slamming the back of his head into Sergeant Satou's admittedly already spatulate nasal protuberance. 'Sorry, Sarge. But you shouldn't lurk like that.'

'Do I look as though I do stealthy?'

He looked. He couldn't help himself. The woman was about five foot eight, and built like a tank. He really had to bite his tongue to avoid asking if she was natural born XY or XX - unpardonably rude, but damn… if Maya von Stauffenberg/Harlock/Whatever was at one end of the bell shaped curve for feminine beauty, then Sargeant Kiriko Satou was at the other… Unless neanderthals _were_ making a comeback, and he _had_ heard of stranger things out in the colonies… in which case she might even be their equivalent of beauty queen. Who was he to judge?

Then he noticed something long and thin twitch in the front of her combat pants. And dear god, it extended down past (her?) knees...

'Erm…' He couldn't help himself. He really, really couldn't. How the hell was he supposed to ignore _that_ for heaven's sake?

'Never seen a tail before, Jones?' she half-snarled at him as she walked away.

'Tail?'

One of the marines behind Satou barked out a laugh. Another took him to one side as the rest of them pushed him out of the way as they made ready to enter the base proper. 'Sarge here's descended from one of the few families who stayed behind on Earth when most of the trogs and aquatics left. The government hasn't exactly come out and made any Earth-dwelling minorities persona non grata yet, but we take care of our own whatever their "species" - capisce?'

Con nodded, and then noticed that the man's collar didn't quite hide the faint lines of his gill slits. And on closer inspection his black hair had green roots… 'Admiral Okita seems to have a pretty eclectic hiring policy,' he murmured. 'Good for her.'

'Keeps us out in the boonies, but in the current climate back in the solar system, that's no bad thing,' the aquatic marine (and oh, Con thought, he couldn't have made _that_ one up…) replied with a grin. 'Though I really hope I don't have to spend too long on this dump. Sand is _not_ good for my gills…'

Con had to trot to keep pace. 'Just out of interest, did you volunteer for this before or after they mentioned the atmospheric conditions?'

The marine turned his head just enough to flash a quick grin at him. 'Cheeky bugger, aren't you?'

'Just testing a theory…'

'I might do that,' the marine mused. 'A quick survey to find out how long a flabby, overpaid desk monkey would last outside those blast doors stripped down to his socks and underpants…'

'Well that lets me off the hook,' Con replied breezily. 'I ain't wearing any underpants…'

Both his running partner and the two men close enough to overhear the exchange guffawed. One of them slapped Con between the shoulder blades, almost knocking him off his feet. 'This one's okay, for a desk-monkey...'

Con grinned and tapped his comms. 'Hey - Sarge? You might wanna hike left at the next intersection. I need a communication station with an all you can eat buffet, and we're near the base commander's quarters according to the schematics I downloaded.'

The sound of blasterfire floated down the corridor before he'd finished speaking. 'Slip round us, Geronimo, and take your desk-monkey. We got a few idiots here with tin cans on their heads think they outnumber us!'

The aquatic raised a hand and gestured, and the group came to a halt. Another wave and three left the group, running into the fray. The remaining three took up a protective stand around Con, one on each side, one behind.

'I don't need…' he began.

'You're the asset, Jones. I don't care how good you think you are in a scrap, you're not marine. It's our job to get you to where you can do yours. Stay behind us.'

Sulking, he complied. Whilst he recognised the necessity, it still stuck in his craw.

The gunfire had retreated ahead of them, when they reached the intersection. Con could just make out the sounds coming from the side passage directly opposite the one he wanted.

'Sarge'll keep 'em busy,' Geronimo said with considerable satisfaction. 'Right, Jonesy - where we headed?'

He pointed left. 'Three doors down, on the right. Two doors to our left before we get there. Three right after, four left, dead end, no side corridors.'

'Ta. Right, you heard the man - Miko, Randy - clear those rooms. Arty - watch the rear. I'll take point and Jonesy - watch my damn back would ya?'

Con grinned and hefted his pistol - Arcadia Industries issue. 'Be a pleasure.'

* * *

The rooms were empty, bar one. Miko's voice over the link was probably distorted by drool when "it's full of half-nekkid women!' came over the link.

Con couldn't resist sticking his head round the door as he passed. Miko - tall, coffee skinned and handsome, was looking rather nervous as a group of six scantily clad lovelies cowered from the armoured marine, some sobbing openly, others looking terrified but slumped into a heap on the floor.

'Crap,' Geronimo muttered from near his right ear. 'They look wasted…' He nodded to Miko. 'Try and get 'em moving, Mik. Call the Sarge and let her know we've got some non-combatants to get clear.'

'A bloody harem…' Con muttered as they moved on towards their destination. He scanned the side panel. Simple numerical keypad… six digit combo… He tapped a command into his tablet and waited. Another perk of working for Arcadia Engineering, he thought fondly, as he waited for the programme created by Old Man Oyama to do its thing. You get all the best toys…

'Gerry! Got a problem here!'

The aquatic cursed under his breath - oddly this seemed to slither through his gill-slits - a bubbling epithet Con couldn't make out - and turned away just as the door irised open. Con tucked his tablet into his jacket pocket, and without thinking, stepped into the room.

There was a sickening thump on the back of his head, and his world went dark.


	14. Chapter 14

Con groaned and tried to stand up. Someone was trying to help him up, but he only got as far as sitting before a wave of nausea left him with his head between his knees. 'Oh, god… what hit me?'

'That would be me. Sorry - I thought you were someone else.' A delightful husky contralto, that when he managed to look up, seemed to be attached to an athletic redhead wearing a skimpy chiffon… something... that barely reached the tops of long, lean thighs. He carried on going down, taking in equally shapely calves, back up to the profile of what promised to be a very firm ass, a flat trim stomach and a very nice pair of…

'Con? Oi, Jones! How many fingers am I holding up?'

He slapped the digits out of his line of sight. 'Do you mind? They're in the way.'

The marine who'd spoken laughed. 'Oh. He'll be fine.' He held out a hand. 'Up you come. And try not to throw up on my boots.'

Somehow he managed it without disgracing himself or swaying too much. He reached up to touch the back of his head gingerly. 'What the hell did you hit me with, lady?' He clicked his fingers to get the attention of the men holding her. 'Hey - I think you can let her go. She doesn't look like one of the bad guys.' He couldn't help himself… He really couldn't… 'Not in that get-up…' The marines stepped back, and she rubbed her wrists.

'Captain Elizabeth Michaelides, SDF. I'm a prisoner here.' She gave him the once over and he grinned when she lingered a little over his chest. 'Sorry about that - the bastard stuck an inhibitory chip in my head - I just kind of closed my eyes and let rip when the door opened and hoped for the best.'

There was a wooden sculpture - some kind of abstract - on the floor. He raised an eyebrow. She shrugged.

He grinned, considered bowing and thought better of it. 'Con Jones, security consultant, Arcadia Engineering. I would say pleased to meet ya, but under the circumstances…' He tapped the marine next to him on the shoulder. 'Think you can find the lady something to wear?'

The marine glanced over to his commander who nodded. 'Be quick about it, corporal. We need to get moving again.'

Whilst the marine rummaged through the walk-in closet, Con sidled up to the SDF captain. 'You ok?' he asked softly.

'Shouldn't I be asking _you_ that?'

He shrugged. 'I'd love to ask you to rub it better, but like the man said, we're up against it. Besides, I'll live. I just meant…' he gestured at her practically see through tunic.

'No worse than a couple of one-night stands I'd prefer to forget,' she replied. 'Almost as charming and attractive as he thinks he is. A few drinks in the right bar and hell, I'd probably have taken him home for the night.''

'And yet,' Con mused. 'You were prepared to brain him with an artwork…'

'And yet… also an unmitigated arsehole who thinks his Übermensch credentials entitle him inflict his "superior" genetic material upon any female he takes a fancy to, and although kind enough not to actually _force_ them, takes pains to ensure they can only blow his cock, not his brains out, by sticking inhibitor chips in their brain stem. It's the distinction between "jumping" and "being pushed" that makes all the difference, no matter how good the sex...' she snarled.

Con grinned nastily. Angry, this one - unlike the weeping lilies in the other room. Anger was good - it'd keep you focussed. She was understandably a little brittle around the eyes and the corners of her mouth showed lines of strain, but this one would keep going until she could let it out in private. And he could help a little with that… 'Point him out to me if we meet up. I'll take that pop at him for ya. Slow or quick?'

She smiled, a little weakly. 'Oh, by all means, take your time.'

'It'll be my pleasure,' he assured her. When the marine handed her a shirt and a pair of loose pants he turned his back.

'I think you've seen everything I have to offer,' she said behind his back, sounding amused. The marines left the room. He could hear the rustle of fabric on skin and tried not to think too hard about what was happening to his rear. He had indeed had a very good look, and liked what he saw. But still…

'Mama Jones' little boy was brought up to be a gentleman, captain.' A stabbing pain in the back of his head was enough to make him take another careful probe of the site.

'It's not bleeding,' she assured him. She materialised at his side, cinching a belt around her waist to help hold the trousers up. A look that suited her a lot better, he thought, than a lacy baby-doll. He never had understood men who liked their women to look fluttery.

'Externally,' he replied with a hang-dog expression. 'Internally I could be developing the mother of all sub-cranial haematomas and keel over without warning…' he trailed off with a grin as she rolled her eyes at him, and handed her his spare pistol. 'Does that chip affect you shooting at anyone else?'

She checked over the piece with professional efficiency. 'Not according to the pointy-eared bastard.' She hesitated. 'Aren't we supposed to be on different sides, Mister Jones?'

'It's doctor, if you're going to be all formal. And the way I figure it, right now there's us and them. And we're definitely us.'

'And afterwards?'

He smiled. 'Ah well. Then there'll just be us…'

Geronimo stuck his head back around the doorway. 'When you've finished trying to get into the captain's knickers, Jones, we do have a base to take?'

Con pouted, but he did follow the marine into the corridor, the SDF captain at his side. 'I _wasn't_ trying to get into her knickers,' he protested plaintively.

'Really?' Elizabeth couldn't hold back a disbelieving snort.

'No.' He let them wait for the punchline. 'You weren't _wearing_ any…'

'Dear god… Geronimo groaned as he walked. 'Have you even _heard_ of sensitivity training?'

'I'm being asked that by a heavy-weapons toting knuckle dragger,' he stage whispered to Elizabeth as they walked. 'Am I the only one who sees the irony?'

She had to cough to cover up a totally inappropriate and only slightly hysterical giggle, and it turned into a hiccup. 'Lucky for you I'm not the kind who falls apart at the seams.'

'No-one who lies in wait for an opportunistic rapist, intent on removing his brains from his skull with his own over-priced, pretentious abstract statuary is a delicate little victim,' Con replied. He turned just far enough that she could see him wink at her. 'And see - I'm making you laugh. This is not a bad thing…'

It wasn't, she thought as she kept pace with the marines and the overly chatty blond doofus. She couldn't help eying him up as she jogged between Jones and an as yet unnamed marine. A shade over six foot, with fair hair too long to be military curling at the top of his collar; a day's growth of stubble on a firm chin. Not too hard on the eyes if you liked them a little rough around the edges and if she didn't mind robbing the cradle - she probably had at least seven to eight years on him. The dark grey body armour zipped up over an impressive broad chest and shoulders, and tan leathers hugged long, well-muscled thighs and a tight ass, although there _might_ have been the start of a little roll at the waist. His blue eyes had a disconcerting way of staring right into her, as though he could see past the bravado to the churning mess inside that she wanted to just lean against a wall and heave up onto the stone floor. And a way of getting under your skin and taking your mind off said mess that suggested, on reflection, that the foot-in-mouth act was exactly that…

'Just exactly what is your doctorate in, Jones?' she asked.

'Huh. Oh. Psychology,' he replied off-handedly.

'I thought you were counter-intel and security?' Geronimo asked without taking his eyes off their route.

'I got hauled into a think-tank when this damn cluster-fuck started. Kind of fell into advisory work and didn't like what the powers that be were doing with my research. So I quit, and found out I have a skill set that fits nicely into some applied applications and getting computers to figure out how people think. Which is just what Old Man Oyama wanted for his new ships' central computers…'

'You're a cynical, manipulative bastard with hot computing skills, in other words?'

Con gave her a smirking grin. 'What gave it away?'

'Save it, Casanova. You're up. According to the schematic, this should be the main server room.' Geronimo held up a fist to bring them to a halt. 'Two guards. Shouldn't be a problem.'

Less than sixty seconds later Con stepped over the prone bodies of two of the masked men. 'Gotta wonder how that works,' he murmured. 'I mean - do they take them off to shave? Cut their hair?' He knelt beside one of the men and took a closer look at the metal mask. 'Huh. A magneto encephalograph using room-temperature superconductors? Haven't seen those outside a clinical setting. This tech is mostly used just for diagnosis…'

'It uses feedback loops to reprogram the brain based on reading the magnetic field we all generate around our heads... For the win it plugs into the brain and adjusts the endocrine system. That, and a simple ablative device to scour the dermis, which it needs to keep smooth anyway to keep the MEG on the skull. They depilate them before the process and then the mask takes care of the rest.' When the men all turned to look at her, Elizabeth shrugged. 'The pointy-eared bastard likes to chat. Seems to think it makes him more accessible, and quite honestly, he likes to flaunt his superiority over his audience.' She grimaced. 'Frankly I think I'd rather put up with the pawing than the talking… I've known a few of those Shaitanese, and they all think far too much of themselves.'

'Want his tongue as well as his genitals on that silver platter?' Jones unfolded to his full height and gave his erstwhile subject a push with the toe of his boot.

Elizabeth patted Con on the arm. 'That might just be the nicest offer I've had in weeks. But for now, I think you'd be better off doing what you came here for. That marine's looking a trifle apoplectic…'

Con gave Geronimo a fleeting once-over. 'Probably sand in his gills,' he teased. But he took the hint, and shooed the other marine out of his way. 'Let's see what we have here….'

As he sat down he heard the patter of the captain's bare feet on the flooring, as she took up a position next to the marines at the door. A hushed debate ended with someone in boots being sent to stand guard further down the corridor, and he smiled to himself as he bent over the keyboard. _Nope… definitely a survivor, not a victim, that one… The PEB had better hope his inhibitory tech held, because he for one wouldn't want to be on the receiving end of the beatdown an SDF captain could deal out_ … He snuck a look back over his shoulder to where she stood next to the aquatic, her borrowed shirt tied around her waist revealing a very nice ass covered by a pair of pants that were far too snug. _Now why_ , he asked an uncaring universe, _did you have to drop her in my lap when we're supposed to be killing the fuck out of each other_?

No answer forthcoming, he sighed quietly and got to work.

* * *

Mamoru slammed a new energy cartridge into his cosmo eagle and leaned around the corner to fire. The last masked guard fell to the floor with a satisfying thud. With his free hand he reached down and hauled his brother to his feet. 'You need to learn to duck faster. How many times do I have to tell you that you make too big a target?'

Harlock pulled free of Mamoru's firm grip on his arm. 'Taller, maybe. But you've got me on width,' he quipped. He elbowed his brother in the stomach to make a point, but since he ended up with his elbow practically bouncing off a stomach just as firm as his own, decided to let the home-cooking gag on the tip of his tongue stay put. They grinned at each other. 'The holding facility is just down that last corridor. Not sure how pleased those workers will be to see _us_ though… most of them were colonials…'

'They don't have to like us, Phantom. They just have to not kill us.' Mamoru extended the other hand to the marine who was sitting on the floor brushing off flakes of her body armour. The ablative coating had taken a couple of nasty hits. 'You okay, Nobuta?'

She got to her feet with a grunt, using his arm almost like a rope. He tried to hide the pained wince since the woman had a grip like a boa constrictor. 'Feel like I just went through that rock crusher we passed back there, but I'll live. Those masked guys just don't quit, do they?'

'They must bypass a lot of the natural human reflexes,' Mamoru suggested. He looked at Harlock for clarification but the younger man shrugged noncommittally.

'Don't look at me, I didn't get a good look at them, and no-one was talking about them in the dorms. There's some kind of processing for them here though - they dragged Khalsa off threatening to turn him into one of those cyber-zombies. I don't plan on letting _that_ happen…'

'We'll find him,' Mamoru promised. 'Now let's get these workers out of here. Nobuta?'

'Sir?'

'Get your team together. Anyone who wants to join in, there was an armoury back there. Sign 'em up. Anyone too sick to move on their own, assign anyone who has an issue with aiding and abetting us dastardly Earthers to helping evacuate.'

She nodded then turned back to her small team and began barking orders.

'And us?' Harlock asked.

Mamoru slapped him on the back. 'Khalsa. According to the plans, the facility is about two hundred yards this way, and up a level. Assuming we don't have any more problems with the roof falling in…'

'That was one small rockfall,' Harlock replied prissily.

'And yet, my shoulder feels as though it'll never be the same again…' Mamoru looked back over his shoulder and frowned. 'Maybe we should have some back-up…'

'Why?' Harlock checked the charge for his cosmo dragoon as he walked, and closed up the power pack with a sharp click. 'We've got each other - who else do we ne-' he held up a hand to signal a halt. 'Boots.'

'Corpses,' Mamoru replied with a cold smile. Both men dropped automatically into a combat stance, and waited in the slight, but effective shelter of doorways on opposite sides of the corridor.

Less than a minute later Harlock, watching his brother take off down the corridor in pursuit of an over-dressed dandy he hadn't known was that fleet of foot, mentally commended himself as he stepped over the two masked guards because for once, it wasn't _him_ who'd broken cover and gone off at the deep end swearing to tear someone's head off…

* * *

He was never going to hear the end of this from Phantom, Mamoru knew that with the certainty born of long years of being the "sensible" one. But seeing Nevich's ridiculous flat hat coming around the corner before he and his escort drew level had ripped off a scab over a wound that had been festering for almost seven years. And perhaps he _could_ have saved his breath and just unloaded the Cosmo Eagle into the bastard, but that would have been far too quick.

He didn't bother trying to catch up to the poisonous little toad, since the idiot had taken to his heels and fled down a long corridor which, according to the schematics hacked by Con Jones, ended in a stone wall.

Nevich turned and stood like a stag at bay, breathing heavily, and had no option but to wait for his pursuer to arrive. To his credit, Mamoru thought, he did at least try to snap off a shot or two as he approached - but since he was breathing so hard it was a miracle he could even hold the damn pistol, and somewhere along the way Mamoru had trodden on his glasses with a satisfying crunch, Mamoru only had to twist slightly to avoid a weak blaster bolt before he was closing with the man who'd once threatened the people he loved more than life itself.

He holstered his pistol whilst Nevich fiddled with the settings on his own weapon, swearing under his breath as he fumbled, and waited until the man looked up myopically into his eyes before launching a gloved right fist straight into that rabbity, twitching nose. His left drove into Nevich's stomach hard enough to knock the breath out of him just as he found himself unable to breathe through his nose. Ignoring the choked gasping cries, Mamoru hauled Nevich to his feet by his neatly creased lapels, and stared in disgust as the thin-faced weasel swayed, gulping, gurgling wheezing and bleeding profusely from his shattered nose. 'You pathetic fucking disgrace…'

'You can't do this!' Nevich struggled to gasp the words out. He glared defiantly into Mamoru's eyes, and then paled at what stared back at him. 'I have connections - they'll try you as a traitor for attacking a trusted council member.'

'You think I care?' Mamoru eyed him up from head to toe. 'After the crap you pulled with my wife and girls? To me? My brother?' He leaned closer until his face was close to Nevich's and pulled back with a derisive snort when the other man visibly flinched. 'My youngest daughter still has nightmares about that night. Just how much do you think I care about your "connections"?' He studied him for a moment as though thinking - though in truth, he'd known for years exactly what he'd do to this maggot if he ever got his hands on him. Then with meticulous precision, he balled up his fists and began to beat the shit of the smarmy weasel.

Nevich perhaps would not appreciate the attention to detail as combat-leather gloves hardened - both to protect the fists inside them and to deliver a harder punch, but each blow matched a bruise found on either Miranda's, or his daughters' bodies after the squealing coward on the receiving end had broken into Mamoru's home, abducted them, and dragged them to Schloss Greifenstein at gunpoint, threatening to turn them over to his Council-provided goons to be raped and murdered.

It was a slow, methodical beating, and Mamoru wasn't even breathing heavily when a voice behind him spoke gently. 'Enough, aniki.'

'Not even close,' he growled, shaking the bloodied, limp marionette he held up against the wall. But Harlock's hand closed around his raised fist and held it, refusing to allow the blow to land.

'He's done, nii-san. Let go. Unless you _want_ to kill him. He shot you in the back so I'm due a little payback here as well…'

Mamoru allowed Harlock to push his fist down to his side, and took a shuddering breath when his brother let go of his hand. He unclenched both fists, and Nevich, beaten bloody, his face unrecognisable, slumped to the floor in a boneless heap, both eyes swollen shut. The brothers watched with casual detachment as he slumped from sitting to a crumpled heap. 'Remind me,' Harlock said as though discussing the weather, 'never to get you that mad at me…' Then as though it was an afterthought he sank the toe of his boot into Nevich's back, almost lifting him off the floor. 'Try pissing blood for a week,' he advised coldly. He stamped on an outstretched hand, feeling the multitude of small bones crunch under his heel. 'And that's a reminder not to shoot my brother in the back.' He knelt down and pulled Nevich's head up by his hair so he could look into his eyes at close range. 'And take a lesson, Alexei - if I see what's left of your face anywhere in the Solar System again, I _will_ end you. After we're done dismantling your little joint venture here and I testify about your involvement at El Alamein, you can kiss that Council seat - and their support - goodbye.'

Disconcertingly, instead of the expected response, Nevich began to laugh - at least, they assumed that's what the gurgling bubbling noises were. 'You fools - who the fuck do you think is picking up the tab for all of this? You really think a fleet of battleships is going to be able to deal with what's coming? Or the top-secret alien tech you're playing with around Titan? The fleet might still think they're going to be fighting a traditional war, but the council understands the truth. The pair of you have just tried to take down the only hope we have of stopping this homecoming movement from totally overwhelming Earth!' He giggled, a disturbing sound through a blood filled mouth and a broken nose. 'If you turn me in, you're so fucked it's untrue.'

Mamoru hauled his brother away before he could launch another boot at that smirking form. A suitable distance away he gave him a little shake. 'You and Tochiro went out on a limb to get to Tiamat to warn the fleet, and you thought there was a traitor. How does that square with Nevich's giggling confession?'

Harlock frowned. 'If it _is_ the whole damn council, we're all screwed. But why? Why try to wipe out their own ships? It doesn't make sense. I can see the _reason_ for creating that plasma emitter, even if I think it's horrendous. But cutting down your own military?'

'Shaitan.' Mamoru replied softly. 'Justinian's been warning us about them for years… Maybe it makes sense if you factor in Shaitan. Doppler Corp isn't just a megacorp, it's a new face for a nasty infection that humanity has never quite managed to cut out.'

Harlock looked a little sick. 'We thought Doppler was one of the instigators forcing this reverse diaspora to "cleanse" the colonies of what he and his cronies call undesirables - and it fits that the Gaia Council would join forces I guess, to protect Earth, but why turn on our own people?'

'It makes perfect sense if the plan is for Shaitan's "elite" to inherit the Earth,' Mamoru replied darkly. He cast a glance back at the barely conscious dandy slumped against the wall. 'Of course if they sell it to the council in a way that plays into _their_ sense of entitlement…'

Harlock frowned, then drew the heavy pistol from its holster, aimed, fired and reholstered it in a move so smooth and casual it was over before Mamoru even registered that Nevich's upper left torso was plastered over the wall.

'Albrecht!'

`If we took him back he'd never stand trial. He was right - _we'd_ be the ones facing execution. And frankly I'm starting to think we shouldn't let _anyone_ know we were even here.'

'My mother and Sanada both know.'

'Not about this… though both of them will be able to do the math.'

' _Arithmetic_. I raised you better than that. And mother purposefully made sure that she only sent people she could spare…'

'Aniki…'

Mamoru placed his hands on his brother's shoulders and looked up into his eyes, the sherry-dark irises expanded to thin rings, making his eyes look like dark pools. 'Relax. I'm not planning anything horrific. But she suspected we might need to keep a lid on things. I guess we just inherited a few more civilian contractors…'

'Oh, that's _so_ much better… do you have any idea how many people on the payroll we have already who aren't exactly legally in-system?'

'Out of two and a half thousand, five hundred and sixty-seven,' Mamoru replied blithely.

'I wish I thought you were making that up as you go,' Harlock muttered. He looked down at the mess that had once been Alexei Nevich. 'Why the hell didn't _you_ just shoot him to start with and save yourself the effort of using him as a punchbag?'

Mamoru wriggled his fingers and winced. 'Because when it comes to those I love, I'm just as much of a vindictive bastard as you are?' He stared down at the dead man, feeling hollow inside. 'We can't stop the storm that's coming, little brother. The exodus from the colonies can't be stopped now. And we can't defend Earth and those we care about if we're dead or in prison.' He sighed heavily.

'There's still the Deathshadow fleet…'

Mamoru smiled weakly. 'Harlock - whilst I know first hand how good Tochiro is as an engineer, the truth is, against what's coming, those four ships were obsolete before they left the drawing board. By the time they're ready we'll be drowning in millions of ships and not even those new Dimensional Oscillator cannon can take out thousands of ships at a time…'

'Actually…'

Mamoru held his hand up to forestall him. 'Later, brat. We're done here. Let's get your crew and go home before the volcano you pissed off blows its top…'

* * *

In the command centre Victor watched the easy camaraderie between the brothers with some amusement - right up until the moment when the younger calmly blasted most of Nevich's upper torso after his brother had delivered a pasting that would have left the effete snob crippled for life. A move which also had the effect of wiping the cool equanimity off the face of the older man. Interesting… he hadn't flinched from methodically crippling the man, but even he hadn't seen that shot coming…

He probably hadn't seen the quick look his brother had sent his way just before he fired, either. It had been brief and even Victor had needed to rewind the footage to be sure. He tapped the image with a finger, and wondered just how far those men would go to protect each other. 'Hechi was right… An interesting bloodline - perhaps we should consider looking into incorporating it. It seems something of an oversight - I had no idea Earth could still breed men like this…'

'I checked the records,' Danga said from behind him. 'About five hundred years ago it was tested and considered far too resistant to assimilation. There's a rebellious strain in that line that has endured against all odds for at least fifteen hundred years, when by all rational logic it should have been selected out long before humanity left Earth.' He stood shoulder to shoulder with Victor. 'And yet that genome should be, after all this time, a lot more widely spread than it is.'

'Perhaps very few in any generation survive to breeding age… but we might want to rethink that assessment. We are often too quick to reject prime material over short term concerns.'

'You'd breed the wolf back into a line of hunting dogs,' Danga snorted. 'Not smart.'

'But it would be interesting to see what the outcross could bring,' Victor mused. 'But the female line, I think would be safer.'

'This Okita has three daughters - I'm sure one of them will meet your standards. But with all due respect - it's past time we evacuated.'

'Agreed. But I've no intention of letting these "wolves" get back to Earth with their story. Harlock seems to be intensely loyal to his crew, and plans to rescue his surviving crewmate.' He switched the video fed off reluctantly. 'I suggest we meet him in the masking room.'

'We could just leave them to the volcano - it's unlikely they'll finish ferrying the workers off in their handful of shuttles, against the storm.'

'Unlikely,' Victor told him coldly, 'isn't certain. I didn't get this far by leaving loose ends.' The facility shook violently and both men had to reach for the console next to them to brace against. 'That felt stronger…'

'A small vent opened on the far side of the caldera,' one of the few remaining techs offered. 'There's a massive pyroclastic flow heading for the spaceport. The beanstalk's gone, sir.'

'We'll have to go, commander,' Danga said quietly. 'We can probably land outside briefly - long enough to get the remaining personnel out, but there's only a ten minute window before the shuttles are compromised - there hasn't been time to fully recharge the shields between trips, and the ash now in the air combining with the sandstorms is a lethal combination - the ash particles…'

'I get the picture, technician.' Calmly Victor reached for his flight jacket, currently draped over the back of his chair. 'Danga - with me. Technician - close down here and get everyone to the main exit.'

'Whatever happened to just drop everything and leave the building in an orderly fashion?' Danga asked, the corners of his thin mouth twitching in a rare show of amusement.

'I actually paid attention to those warp dramas where the bad guys swoop in and swipe every bit of data from the system just before the disaster hits,' Victor deadpanned.

The lights went out.


	15. Chapter 15

Another large tremor rocked the base, sending Harlock crashing into his brother's broad back as they ran. Mamoru merely grunted as his left shoulder slammed into the wall, and his brother's face did the same between his shoulder blades.

'Those are getting a lot stronger and closer together,' he said once he'd managed to regain his balance.

'Sounds like contractions...' The marine behind them quipped, 'only without someone screaming foul-mouthed expletives into your ear whilst trying to crush every bone in your hand…'

'Now there's an image…' Harlock shook his head as though to clear it.

Mamoru snorted. 'And how would you know? You were on Titan Base when Richard was born, and I had to deliver Stefan, since you were half a galaxy away and we were snowed in, with Annelise and Miri stuck in Bayreuth when that three day blizzard downed the flyers...'

'But the obscenities?'

Mamoru grinned. 'She does have quite a mouth on her...' Another shudder shook the base. 'I might be adding a few of my own at this rate. How are we doing on getting the prisoners out?' he asked over his shoulder.

'Over two hundred so far,' the marine replied. 'We're assembling everyone in the main hangar where we can secure the exit and the entrances, but I don't need to remind you…'

'No, you don't.' He turned a worried look on his brother. 'We've got room for maybe fifty - and that's assuming we can turn the shuttles around in this storm, let alone the added problem of the ash, gas and turbulence being added to the atmosphere by the eruption.'

'Maybe this lot have some ships we can commandeer? They got us down here easily enough,' Harlock replied. 'Wait up!' He tugged on Mamoru's sleeve to bring him to a halt at the next junction. 'According to Con's plans, there's a facility listed as "Conditioning and Control" around the corner.' He took a deep breath and let it out with a sharp huff. 'Probably not guarded too heavily…'

'Unless it's a trap?' Mamoru risked a look around the corner. 'No visible guards, and it's presumably a medical facility, but even so - they must know you'd come back for Khalsa…'

'They didn't get that much time to get to know me,' Harlock pointed out somewhat testily.

'Yeah… but you _are_ kind of predictable, baby brother.' Harlock just raised one eyebrow. Mamoru shrugged. 'Shall we go?' he asked, looking up into his brother's haunted brown eyes. In reply Harlock looked away and down, feigning checking the energy cap in his pistol. 'What is it?'

'Nothing… I mean, it's just this sort of thing, it's usually me and Tochiro. Feels odd not to have him here. Like someone lopped an arm off.' He raised his head again and at least made the attempt to meet Mamoru's steady regard. 'You and me… we don't tend to do this sort of thing.'

'Travel halfway across the galaxy, kick ass, blow stuff up and generally cause immense amounts of property damage? I should bloody well hope not.'

'Property damage? The base is still standing, isn't it?'

'It worries me that you feel the need to point that out, and I obviously need to get Tochiro alone sometime and pump him for information on the shit the pair of you get up to when you're out of my sight. But I was _referring_ to blowing up the planet…'

Harlock huffed. 'Fffht. It's still here isn't it?'

'Not once that volcano blows.' As if to make his point for him, the base was rocked again. 'Dammit, Albrecht - how the hell do you manage it? It's like you're a walking advert for the Church of Collateral Damage…' He shook his head. 'Twenty eight years, and I'm still picking up after you…' He muttered this last under his breath, behind his brother's back, as Harlock took the lead. The base shuddered again just before they reached the door they were heading for.

'This is getting a bit close for comfort,' the marine muttered after picking himself up off the floor with Mamoru's help. Mamoru gave the man's jacket a cursory dusting off.

'We'll try to pick up the pace,' he replied dryly. 'Hang back and cover our asses, will you? I'd rather not have any surprises.'

'Captain.' The marine saluted and trotted back to the intersection. Harlock, without waiting for instructions, carried on walking and hit the door control before Mamoru could stop him.

* * *

The door slid into the wall, leaving Harlock exposed in the doorway with absolutely no cover. Only Mamoru's quick reflexes, grabbing his brother by the collar and yanking him out of the way saved him as a flurry of blaster fire whistled past them. 'Seriously?' he yelled into Harlock's ear. 'What the hell do you use for brains?'

'Tochiro,' Harlock yelled back. He shook himself free of Mamoru's grip. 'Three guards. It's a small office. There was a door directly opposite.' He looked around quickly and grinned. 'Hold on - I have a plan…' he dived into the room behind them and came out with a chair and a long coat.

'Plan? What are those for?' Mamoru eyed the items in Harlock's hands with suspicion. 'If you want to pull the overcoat gag I'm going to need a stepladder to climb onto your shoulders…' He watched as Harlock draped the coat over the chair and held it up. 'Ah.'

'Distraction 101,' Harlock quipped. 'Ready?'

'No.'

'Take the left then.' Harlock moved quickly, taking a stance to the right of the door, aluminium char in one hand, awkwardly draped with the black coat, and pistol in the other. Then he opened the door again, this time throwing the chair in as he moved, dropping down and low and firing as bolts passed over his head. Mamoru peered around the doorway and dropped one guard in a metal mask who aimed at his brother's back. The guard landed on top of the chair a bare second before it hit the ground in front of him. The other two were already down.

'Two more ran into the next room,' Harlock told Mamoru as his older brother strode into the room. 'Labcoats, not uniforms.' He kicked at one of the dead guards, pushing the limp body with his toe.

'Don't do that,' Mamoru told him softly. When met with a mulish "why the hell not?" look from under that perpetually messy mop of dark hair he elaborated: 'That could have been you - or Tochiro. You think being brainwashed makes you less human? A little respect. We're not the bad guys.'

'I rather think the guy in charge of this place has a different view,' Harlock muttered sulkily. But he knelt by the side of the body and tugged at the helmet, turning it from side to side. 'No catches to unlock it that I can see. And how do they feed these guys? Through a straw?'

'No time for that,' Mamoru chided him. 'Phantom…'

'Aw! Shit… aniki, this is just fucking gross…' his brother dropped a the piece of metal helmet to the floor. It landed with a dull clunk on the stone. 'Found the locking mechanism… but the damn thing's wired right into the brain through the skull.' He stared down at the piece he'd dropped, which trailed bloodied wires from its inner surface. 'There's bits of _brain_ sticking to the wires…'

'Fascinating,' Mamoru hissed. 'Now can we _please_ stay on mission? Get your arse over here before we attract more attention. Or you break something else. Our main back-up is about three minutes away.'

'Too few to go round,' Harlock replied as he walked over. 'Couldn't you have asked your mother for more?'

'Low profile and plausible deniability.' Mamoru gave his glove a tug. 'The price you pay for flying under the radar off the books at short notice. Take a tip, baby bro - always have a team around you who can rise to _any_ occasion. Specialisation is for insects.'

'It's usually just me and Tochiro,' Harlock muttered.

'And that one short sentence explains so, so much…' Mamoru sighed. 'Door, And this time, do _not_ stand in front of it when it opens.'

'You're a nag. Just so you know.'

'I'm your older brother. Emphasis on the _older_. As in I can't take the shocks you deal out quite so well these days. So if not out of self-preservation, will you _please_ just think of your poor, fatherless nieces, should I keel over?'

Harlock took up his position and snorted. 'Seriously, sometimes you are _so_ full of shit…'

'Takes one to know one,' Mamoru drawled back. 'Runs in the family, after all,' he added blithely, answering his brother's narrow-eyed glare with a shit-eating grin. 'Ready?'

Harlock rolled his eyes, then nodded, pistol raised. This time it was Mamoru who reached for the door control, and, mercifully, noted that this time his brother hung back, letting Mamoru take point. Cosmo Eagle at the ready, he peered around the door frame.

'Don't shoot! We're unarmed!' The voice sounded slightly metallic. Mamoru took a step into the room, careful not to block Harlock's line of fire.

'Hands where I can see them. All of you,' he called out. The three figures in white labcoats complied. All three wore metal masks, but the body language was decidedly un-martial. All men, he noted, not particularly well-built - the shortest was actually rather tubby. He moved out of the doorway to let Harlock follow him in, and between them they cased the room and began to secure the techs.

Health and safety might have had a conniption or three, was his first thought. Although large, and like the rest of the base hollowed out of the bedrock without too much in the way of cladding over the local equivalent of sandstone beyond a fixative spray, there was only the one exit that he could see, and that was the one they'd come in by. It was sparsely outfitted, with a bank of computers along one wall, wires trailing across the floor in reckless disregard for life and limb, and filled with a series of gurneys, only a handful of which were occupied. A large cabinet against the back wall, big enough to hide at least four large men, proved to be a walk-in storage cupboard filled with racks of the metal masks and associated hardware. Surgical trolleys stood next to each gurney, with an assortment of devices on them he really didn't want to speculate about. Especially the drills and the small surgical circular saws.

With the masked techs secured, he began to inspect the gurneys. Their occupants were in various stages of the conversion operation - two with the backplates to the helmets already installed. Neither moved or reacted when he checked their pupils.

'Spinal nerve block,' one of the techs muttered when questioned, prompted by Harlock's Cosmo Dragoon being jabbed into his ribs. 'And once fitted they can't respond until the transmitter is in place and we're sure the process has taken.'

'You had this done to yourselves and you still do this?' Harlock looked visibly sickened. 'Nii-san?'

Khalsa was on the fourth gurney, his long black hair and beard totally removed - not shaved - the skin was totally smooth. Unconscious but breathing normally at least. Mamoru lifted the sheet covering the young officer and grimaced. A small device was attached to the base of his skull - presumably the spinal blocker.

They'd also totally depilated him, he noted idly. Figures, he thought. You'd want to make sure you didn't have any reason to remove the masks, so chemically depilating the body solved that problem. But Khalsa was going to be well pissed when he woke up, and not just about his beard… 'You - one of you - can you remove the spinal block and wake him?'

He set Harlock to overseeing his crewmate's revival, and stood watch at the doorway. One eye on the corridor, he thumbed his commlink. 'Con? You there?'

'Heading for C and C at the moment. Think you can meet us there?'

'As soon as we're done here. I need a couple of guys to take care of a med-evac, if we can spare them?'

'Gotcha. There's a few of the prisoners joining up - some from our side, some colonials. Right now no-one gives a shit about the damn war. I'll send 'em your way. Where are you?'

'Conditioning. We've got Khalsa, and a couple of others. Plus the techs who were putting those masks on them. I think we'll need to take them as well - our med techs might not have a clue how to get these masks off without killing them - or lobotomising them.'

'Gotcha. It's on the schematics. Be a couple of minutes. Brad and Doug got held up a couple of corridors south of you, could use a hand?'

'Tell them to keep the enemy pinned, I'll be right there.' He thumbed the link off. 'Phantom? Can you hold the fort here for a few?'

His brother looked up from where he was tying the tech up again. 'Shouldn't be a problem.' He patted the tech on the head. 'Sit!' he ordered, shoving him to the ground. 'Aniki…'

'I know: be careful.' He left the room at a ground eating lope.

* * *

On board the Deathshadow, orbiting the planet beyond the nearest satellite and keeping it between them and any surveillance, there was an unnatural calm on the bridge. Komarova sat in the captain's chair, her fingers tapping out the beat of a song Maya barely remembered from her own childhood as being constantly on the airwaves. Jan at least was relaxing at his post, since no-one would need him until or unless a firefight started, and the rest tried to look busy by constantly rechecking their readouts.

Her job was rather more stressful, and after ten hours straight she was beginning to wish someone could take over.

'Sis? You should take a break.'

She looked up and smiled weakly at Manfred, who smiled down at her practically radiating brotherly concern. 'There's no-one else qualified…' she began.

He made shooing motions at her and when she didn't immediately stand up, he sighed. 'Marianne Rosenbach-Shenck von Stauffenberg, in case you'd forgotten, I'm also qualified to fly this desk.'

'That's just "Harlock" - you know he doesn't like that word-salad,' she corrected her older brother with a smile.

'He's also a civilian - and one of dubious Sol System residency status at that,' Komarova added, opening one eye and staring hard at the pair. When Manfred just shrugged and winked at her, she laughed. 'But since when does that matter on this bloody ship… Go on, Maya - take a break, grab a coffee.'

Manfred resumed shooing her out of her chair and she gave in gracefully. 'Fine - but do not mess with my boards…'

'Trust me. I am a professional,' he replied, fluttering his eyelashes at her. She laughed and punched his arm.

'Stop that - your baby-blues don't work on me.'

'They might on me, sugar,' Komarova purred. 'I should have thought of this myself - be nice to have some eye-candy to stare out whilst we wait for the brothers grim to do their thing down there.'

'What does that make the rest of us?' Jan span his seat around to pout at his acting captain.

'In your case, jailbait,' she shot back, raising guffaws of laughter from the rest of the crew, and a blush in the cheeks of the normally cocky youth.

Maya shared a smile with her brother. Manfred was the oldest of the three, but in some ways her favourite. Marius and Marcus were closer to her in age which had tended to make them a little more competitive - something Manfred, ten years her senior - had mostly grown out of by the time she was big enough for them to toddle around in their wake. 'I've been tracking the transport fleet from Shaitan - they're less than a day out now, but as far as I can tell, they don't seem to have an armed escort. The time radar is picking up six large cargo transports, making no attempt to hide their ID.'

'Could still be a trap,' he mused.

'The chatter from their comms is on the level, and the idents check out.' She shrugged. 'As you say though, they could be Q ships.'

'Any hulls used for cargo transport won't be armoured to the same extent as a battleship,' Komarova said, leaning back in the chair with her eyes shut. 'Nor can you mount any serious weaponry on them without damaging them - the recoil alone would shake them to bits, without proper inertial dampeners. Even a little ship like this one could deal with them. The danger is they could have a hidden escort ready to pop out of warp. But frankly, operationally, I don't think that's likely - this is a rescue mission from a natural disaster as far as they know…'

'The chatter suggests that's all they're expecting,' Maya confirmed. 'But still…'

'We're aware of the possibility. We're ready for it.' Komarova replied quietly. 'As young Okita's mother always says: don't borrow trouble.' She opened the other eye and stared over her nose at the younger woman. 'You're still cluttering up my bridge, C _ountess_ … Shoo!'

Maya shooed.

Once inside her cabin Maya leaned against the wall with a heavy sigh. The kind of tired she felt wasn't going to respond to either caffeine or sleep. 'What the hell was I thinking?' she muttered to herself. She rubbed at her temples, making small circles with her fingers to ease the tension headache that threatened. When that didn't work she tried massaging the back of her neck, near the base of her skull. Knuckling that felt good for a few seconds, but the feeling didn't last. She slumped down until she was sitting on the floor, knees tucked in against her chest, her chin on top of them and her arms wrapped around them. After a moment of reflection she touched the locket hanging around her neck, and opened the golden scarab with its caput mortuum cameo on the wings.

Once opened a small hologram hovered over the inner workings. A summer day in the rose garden at Schloss Greifenstein: Herself and Annelise, both heavily pregnant - herself with Steffie, Lisel with Mayu. Mamoru standing with his arm around Miranda, and the girls kneeling in front of them. Richard on top of Harlock's shoulders, laughing, and Tochiro crawling around on all fours giving a pony ride to Shizuku.

Another of herself holding Stefan, the little boy reaching out towards Mamoru who'd been holding the camera at the time.

One group shot from her wedding day outside the chapel in the castle, which had been her favourite moment - all three of her brothers surrounding her new husband, armed with antique shotguns from the castle armoury, trying and failing to look stern whilst the rest of the wedding party succumbed to howls of laughter, and her father totally failed to keep a straight face.

Harlock and Tochiro in their fleet uniforms, both looking uncomfortable, especially Harlock whose recent regulation haircut was unflattering and he kept wriggling and fiddling with his collar, to Tochiro's amusement.

Richard's early steps, walking towards Mamoru who was kneeling on the floor with his arms out, as she laughed and called out encouragement from behind the camera.

So few… so very few of her husband with her and their sons, she reflected. She snapped the case to with a snap and tucked it back into her top with a heavy sigh. She would blame the war, except…

...except he couldn't keep his damned feet on solid ground. He no sooner arrived home on leave and he was already staring at the night sky, itching to be off again. _Fernweh_ , they called it. The longing for far off places… 'Can't stop you,' she murmured to the empty room. 'It'd destroy you. But sometimes… I just wish…' She leaned back against the wall, only just resisting the temptation to bang her head against it. 'It wasn't supposed to be like this…' she whispered.

A single tear escaped and ran down her cheek before making its leap for freedom off her chin and meeting its end on her jacket lapel. 'Fuck.'

Something about the expletive had a mildly therapeutic effect. She took a deep breath, straightened her back, wiped her eyes with the back of her hand and allowed herself a noisy, slightly snotty and totally undecorous sniff. Standing up she squared her shoulders, let out a theatrical sigh and dropped onto the bunk. And feeling rebellious, decided that since it was good enough for the menfolk no-one could complain and swung her legs onto the bed without bothering to take her boots off. Ankles crossed, arms behind her head in her best imitation of her husband's I'm-too-twitchy-to-sleep pose, she stared up at the plan metal ceiling and waited for sleep to come.

* * *

Con and Captain Michaelides were lagging someway behind the marines as they approached the central command of the base. One of them stopped to ask if they were all right when Liz leaned against the wall, looking a little pale. Con waved the man on with an "I've got this" wriggle of his fingers. The burly sergeant shrugged, and moved on a few feet for privacy, but didn't follow the rest.

'Sorry.' Liz took Con's offered arm as she straightened and sucked in a couple of deep breaths. 'These last few weeks…'

'Hey. No need to explain to me. I get it.' He grinned at her. 'Besides - I get to be all white-knighty.'

'I'd punch you in the head if I had the energy,' she replied. She shouldered her rifle again, as the strap had slid down her arm when she'd sagged. 'But then I'm thinking it's your least vulnerable spot…'

'And ruin my gorgeous face?'

Her laugh was brief and rusty. 'God, you really do believe your own publicity don't you?' But it was said with a humorous curl of her mouth. 'Though you're about to meet a poster boy for the cliché…'

His mouth turned down slightly at the corners and he frowned. 'We're not all rat bastards about it,' he snapped, a little icily. He dropped his outstretched hand, but didn't stride away, which had been her expectation.

'I'm sorry.' She offered, after a brief hesitation. 'I didn't mean…'

'Forget it.'

The marines had reached the door and someone was attaching a breaching charge to it as they stood, not quite facing off. 'I really…'

'I know.'

'But…'

'Come on. We'll miss the fun. If nothing else I now owe this prick for bringing tall blond and handsome into disrepute.'

They entered the room guns at the ready, expecting to meet with armed resistance. Instead Con's quick sweep of the room showed techs at their consoles, studiously trying to ignore the proceedings, three masked men - armed but offering no resistance and quickly disarmed, and two men with the pointed ears of the Shaitan "elite" caste, one dark with long straight hair hanging lankly to his shoulders and a deep widow's peak (or, Con thought uncharitably, simply a receding hairline…) and one deceptively slim blond with vivid blue eyes and the build and looks that wouldn't have disgraced a male underwear model. The dark haired man eyed the intruders with obvious disdain: lip curled, eyes almost crossing in an attempt to look down his long thin nose at them, shoulders ramrod straight as one of the marines yanked his hands behind his back and zip-tied his wrists. The other just regarded them with what Con could only describe as world-weary amusement as a marine zip-tied him.

Con waited until he was secured, walked up to him and grabbed him by the shoulders. Then staring the smarmy prick right in the eyes, brought his knee up into the other man's joy department as hard as he could. When the man folded almost in half wheezing around his own pain, unable to even clutch his busted balls, Con followed it up with a hard punch into the solar plexus, and let him drop to the floor gasping for air. 'Don't pick him up,' he advised the female marine who'd shot him a "what-the-fuck" look and had reached for her prisoner. 'He's the raping fucking cunt who was keeping that harem.'

It was gratifying to watch her expression change from censure to approval and then narrow-eyed calculation. Even more so when she murmured something before "accidentally" slamming her steel toe cap into the pointy-eared-bastard's already bruised bollocks. He whistled as he walked the few strides back to Michaelides, not bothering to look around as he heard retching, gagging sounds from behind him.

'My hero,' she said as he reached her side again. Con grinned.

'Told ya I'd lay on some hurt for ya,' he said brightly.

'Is that the way the Alliance treats prisoners?' the dark haired man snapped at them. 'There are rules.'

Con opened his mouth to answer but Liz beat him to it. She walked past him and stood facing the shaitanese officer. 'There are - especially about treating prisoners of war - but you captured us, enslaved us, raped and impregnated the women, subjected the men to forced labour and denied us even the most basic rights supposedly guaranteed by the articles of war. You told us you didn't consider yourselves bound by them because you weren't soldiers. So you don't get to hide behind them now, Danga. You're criminals, preying on both sides, and you'll be treated as such. And sadly that means you'll be treated a hell of a lot better than your victims.'

'We're all dead if you don't listen to us.' Con looked over at the sound of a raspy, pain-addled whisper from the floor.

'I should have kicked you in the throat for good measure,' he said conversationally. 'Victor, right?'

'That volcano will be pouring ash, gas and magma in this direction in less than two hours,' Victor gasped. He struggled to sit up. No-one offered to help him and he only managed to end up on his side, unable to use his hands since they were still tied behind his back. 'You've got over two hundred men and women to lift off this rock, and my sensors detect nothing bigger than an admiral class destroyer out there. You just don't carry the shuttles for that, even if you could fly them down in this atmosphere.'

'So? What are you suggesting - is this where you bargain for your lives by suggesting we join forces?' Con asked. 'Is that the best you can do?'

'Your battleship is enough to keep our transport fleet out of range. Unless you let it through, you can't lift more than a quarter of those men off in the time - and that's a best guess, since there's no exact timescale for that magma chamber blowing. When it does it'll take over a hundred square miles at least with it, and the atmospheric conditions will make this storm look like a summer breeze. Nothing will fly on this continent for at least six months.'

'He's right.'

Con turned to see Mamoru walk into the room, followed by a couple of battered looking marines, his brother, and two techs supporting a tall, totally bald young man in medical coveralls who looked like hammered shit.

'Doesn't mean we have to deal.'

Mamoru walked over and knelt beside Victor. 'Oh - this isn't one to deal. He's too smart for that. I mean, I think he let you walk right in here and didn't even put up a fight. The one thing I'm wondering is what angle he thinks he's working…'

Victor smiled at Mamoru, although given that he was still fighting the pain from having a couple of precision strikes on his junk, the result was more of a rictus smirk. 'Oh, I'm fully prepared to cooperate, Okita. I can assure you I have _every_ intention of solving your transport problem for you…'

'Aniki…' Harlock's voice was urgent and sharp-edged with sudden concern. Mamoru looked up at his brother, and his eyes widened in comprehension. He reached for his commlink.

'Saito!' Mamoru snapped into his comm-link. 'Evacuate the hangar! Immediately! Get them out! Now!'

Victor laughed. 'Too late!' he sang out.

A warning klaxon blared out, and a red light began flashing on a console along with a calm female voice over the speakers: _Warning: hangar bays doors opening. Warning: Hangar…_

Harlock lunged forwards, shoved the tech at the console off his chair onto the floor and began punching at the keypad. All he managed to bring up was the audio from the hangar bay, the camera having been disabled on their way in.

Mercifully, the screams were drowned out very quickly by the roar of the storm.


	16. Chapter 16

The only audible sound in the control room was the roar of the storm through the speakers, an accusatory rumble of hurricane-force static. After Harlock flicked the sound to mute, this was replaced by the ragged breathing of the occupants. Only Harken appeared unmoved - even his own men - including Danga - were trying desperately to maintain some semblance of calm in the face of such an unexpected atrocity.

Mamoru swallowed hard and met his brother's implacable, sherry-dark gaze, now almost incandescent with rage. The sharp acidic taste of bile burned, but not nearly as much as the rage building in his own heart.

'Son of a fucking _bitch…'_ It was Con Jones who broke the tense silence, and said out loud what the rest of them were thinking. Con Jones who stepped forward and swung the butt of his carbine into Victor's calm, slightly smirking face, straight into that straight, well-formed, aristocratic nose. 'You murdering fucking _bastard_.'

'Jones!' Nobuta tried to lay hands on him, but he ignored the marine and laid into Victor, dropping his weapon after a second slam into the man's gut, and instead whaling in on him with large, hard fists that knew exactly how to hurt, even after Victor dropped to the floor gasping for air after being severely winded.

No-one else in the room lifted so much as a finger. No-one spoke. Mamoru held Harlock's gaze and didn't so much as glance over to where his first mate was busy pounding a man into the plascrete floor.

'Enough.' It was Elizabeth Michaelides who eventually stepped forward, and laid a hand on Con's arm. 'Jones - enough.'

Con stopped just long enough to turn and meet her eyes. Blue stared into green, and he brushed a bloodied fist across his forehead to clear the sweat threatening to cloud his vision, and move his wayward hair out of the way. It left a pink smear in its wake, and she reached up and brought the damaged hand down into her own, closing her hand around the bloodied knuckles. 'After all he's done?' he growled out eventually.

'You've hurt your hands,' she told him. 'Why the hell did you drop your weapon? Dozy twat.' She thumped him on the arm. A second time for good measure, which he took in good stead, saving his snarl for the entitled prick curled up on the floor trying to breathe through a flattened nose and apparently a second set of tonsils, formerly located in his crotch. Bloodied bruises had already formed on his handsome face, his jaw and both eyes purple and swollen.

Mamoru forced his fingers to uncurl, one at a time.

Breathe in. Breathe out. Repeat.

The knot of hard-coiled anger in his chest refused to be so easily untied, and it settled deep inside like a snarling wolf at bay, all too ready to come out fighting.

Harlock broke the impasse, raising his pistol and taking aim at the spot between two elegantly manicured eyebrows. Before he could squeeze the trigger, one of the marines laid a hand on his arm. 'Stand down, captain.'

He gave her a look that would ordinarily have curdled milk. 'Are you presuming to give me an order, _sergeant_?'

Her tail, freed from its confines, twitched like a restless weimaraner's. 'A strong _suggestion_ , captain - he'll answer for what he's done in good time, but you go around shooting civilians in cold blood in front of witnesses and you'll face a court martial for sure.'

'When we're not even officially _here_?' Con muttered. Mamoru, remembering Nevich earlier, kept quiet.

'Fine then. Any one of you shoots when not being shot at, and it's charges of piracy, murder, theft…'

'Harlock.'

Harlock glanced over to his brother. Mamoru shook his head wearily. 'She's right, brother. Let it go. Our job is to get whoever's left off this base and get the intel we came for.'

'He killed Kav, Mamoru. In cold blood. Just to teach me a lesson, he said. Tried to lobotomise Khal. You've seen what they do here. So we just let them get away with it? If we take them back with us they'll weasel out of it, just as Nev-'

'I didn't say I'd let them get away with anything.' Mamoru strode forwards the few steps needed to bring him just out of arm's reach of Danga, who was helping a bloodied and bruised Victor to his feet. 'Tie them up, lock them in a room and throw the key away.' He smiled coldly at the pair. 'I won't kill you. But I'll be damned if I'll save you. You might get lucky - your incoming transports might reach here before the lava does. But frankly, given how badly you've screwed up here, I'm guessing you might be hoping they'll be too late…'

'Keep guessing,' Danga snarled. 'When we do get out of here - and we will - you can be damned sure that we'll make sure you pay for this. Both of you.'

'Got any duct tape?' Harlock asked blandly. 'I'd suggest gagging them as well so we don't have to listen to the posturing. It's already getting on my tits…'

'Typical of you Earthers,' Danga sneered. 'Taking refuge in vulgar threats and profanity. Too stupid to hold an intelligent conversation.'

'Fuck you,' Harlock replied, with one of his most dazzling smiles. The one that very few people ever seemed to notice didn't reach his eyes.

'Low born mongrel.'

Harlock stepped forward and backhanded him across the mouth, staggering both Danga and his still wavering boss. 'For the record, my pedigree's been a matter of record dating back over fifteen hundred years, and we've almost always been wealthy, titled and run to tall, dark and handsome. Though I'll grant you the smarts tend to vary… If you're going to insult me, at least get your facts right, you inbred, lab-grown, cock-sucking cur.'

'Yee-ouch,' Elizabeth whispered into Con's ear admiringly. ' _Burn_ …'

Harlock turned his back on the pair. 'Aniki? If you want me, I'll be rounding up what's left of our team and any prisoners who didn't make it to the hangar.'

'I'll call Komarova, the Deathshadow's shields should be able to take the blast long enough to get us out.'

'What were you planning to use?' Harlock asked.

'She carries a complement of hover-platforms. Since we don't have to worry about hostiles, we'll just set her down over the base, extend the shields and take everyone up.'

Harlock nodded vaguely, and looked over the assembled Doppler Corp techs. 'I still think you should shoot them.'

'Your trouble is you just want instant gratification. Sergeant?'

'Sir?'

'Help my brother with the evac. I'll just need a couple of your men to secure the prisoners, then we're out of here.'

'Sir!' her salute was parade ground snappy, and Harlock snorted as he passed his brother on the way to the door. ' _You_ she "sirs"?'

'Natural air of command?' Con interjected with a smirk from where he stood with an arm protectively around the shoulders of the SDF captain.

'Be thankful you're not under my command,' Harlock sniped back.

'Oh. I am. Truly,' Con replied with a grin. 'That ain't _ever_ going to happen…'

'It'll be a long, nasty war before it's over,' Harlock replied. 'Never say never, Jones.'

'Even unto the third generation, Captain… even unto the third generation…'

'Stop that, 'Mamoru murmured as Harlock strode past him with a snort. 'You sound like that chestnut mare you keep arguing with…' He turned his attention back to the room. 'Con - take the captain here to the staging area with my brother - we'll give her a lift home. The rest of you - find me a nice chilly storeroom with a lock on it. I want the trash stowed away before we leave.'

'Leaving enemies alive behind you is never a smart move,' Victor rasped, his breathing frothy and harsh. 'You should have followed your first instinct and killed us. The moral high ground is rarely a safe place to stand in the long term.'

There's a gun on the floor,' Mamoru replied evenly, pointing at the item in question. 'Pick it up and shoot. You might get lucky.'

Victor's eyes blazed, and he smiled coldly, the gesture even more disturbing given his face was covered in drying blood. He leaned heavily on Danga's shoulder. 'Shot trying to escape? I think not, Okita. I prefer to live to fight another day.'

'And I like to sleep soundly at night,' Mamoru said. 'So we all make sacrifices. We all have lines we won't cross.'

He turned on his heel and left the room without a backward glance.

* * *

Maya let out a restrained sigh of relief once Montoya announced that all personnel were back on board. Komarova didn't waste any time sending the Deathshadow soaring back into orbit after that, the little ship springing into the dark as though it couldn't escape the planet fast enough. Already the caldera was a bright, red and black blight on the scanners, belching gas and ash into a plume several miles high. Although the cloud had covered a substantial part of the surrounding area, the heat sensors displayed the deep mantle plume peeking through the thick cloud. All hell literally breaking loose.

'The ash cloud is playing havoc with our sensors,' Maya informed the acting captain. 'A lot of static.'

'We'll be clear of it soon enough.' Komarova turned in her seat to the engineering station. 'Shields and hull?'

'Took a pounding from those sandstorms, but we're clear. Number three nozzle needs a clean though, it was closest to the hangar.'

Komarova nodded. 'Get us into the radar shadow of the moon, then shut it down. We'll go IN-SKIP as soon as everyone's off the hangar deck. Strip that section down en route - we won't need it in Imaginary Number space.'

'Aye aye, sir.'

'Captains Harlock and Okita?'

'En route to the bridge.'

'Make that on the bridge.' Mamoru swept onto the bridge, closely followed by his brother and Con Jones. 'Komarova?'

She yielded the captain's chair with a smile and a stretch. 'All yours, captain.' He smiled back as he took his seat. Without being told, Harlock headed for weapons, and Con took his own station back from the older man covering for him.

'Time to IN-SKIP?'

'Ready when you are, Captain,' Montoya called out.

'Three ships on the time radar,' Maya added, watching the blips on the outer range of her sensors. 'Armed transports from the energy signatures.'

'Doppler,' Harlock snarled. He reached for the controls.

'Stand down,' Mamoru ordered. ' _Civilian_ ships, Phantom. Regardless of the fact they're armed to the teeth. You start shooting and I'll be hanging by the neck from the Mars beanstalk when we get back.'

' _Murdering slavers_ , nii san. They ought to give us a fucking medal for taking out the trash.' His hands still hovered over the controls. 'Turn your back, go to the head, whatever you have to do - plausible deniability was the order of the day, right?'

'For rescuing our people,' Mamoru pointed out. He ran his fingers through his hair and sighed. 'I know how you feel, I really do, but…'

'No. No, you really don't.'

Maya, recognising the signs of an imminent explosion, reached out to him, to try and lay a hand on his arm but he shook it off with something close to a snarl twisting his handsome face into a mask that made her pull back, chastened. 'You can't fucking know, because you weren't _there_.'

Mamoru stood up. 'Outside. Now.'

'Giving me orders now?' Harlock got to his feet and towered over his brother. 'You don't…'

'Now. With or without my boot up your backside. Your choice.'

Mamoru's voice was calm, but Maya recognised the danger signs. Harlock she knew was well aware he was pushing his luck, but appeared to be past the point of caring judging by the rigid set of his shoulders. The rest of the bridge crew all appeared to be finding more interesting things to be looking at on their respective consoles, whilst simultaneously casting furtive glances towards the brothers.

'Fine.' Harlock growled eventually, shoving his way past Mamoru, deliberately stopping barely an inch short of shoulder charging him as he stormed off the bridge. Without a word spoken, Mamoru followed him at a more military pace than was his wont, and Komarova rolling her eyes when Maya glanced her way, moved back to the captain's seat and began ordering the jump.

Maya, torn between duty and the urge - or need - to check on her idiot of a husband and her brother in law, hovered slightly above her seat, wondering if she could justify asking for a head break.

'Sit down.'

Maya sat, Komarova's voice having the same bypass-the-voluntary-nervous-system effect her mother's used to.

'But…' she didn't quite manage to stop the word escaping in a tiny squeak.

'Let them sort it, girl. They're big boys.'

'My money's on Okita,' Con rumbled from his station. 'What?' he asked of the room, as everyone turned to look at him. 'The kid's tough, but he goes all in too early. The captain strikes me more as a guy takes punishment and waits for someone else to fuck up. Pretty-boy? Kind of leaps in and hopes to take 'em out on the first salvo.'

'Sayeth the man who just jumped right in and started pasting a civilian prisoner?' Komarova asked, with an arch of her silver eyebrow. 'No-one's running a book.' She ordered, as Montoya opened his mouth and shut it again as she spoke. 'Now let's get this boat out of here before we're spotted. In case anyone else has forgotten, this is still an Earth Fleet military vessel and we're not supposed to be here.'

With only mild grumbling, the crew turned their attention back to their jobs. Maya's hand hovered over the button that would operate the corridor comm unit, only to feel hair brush the side of her face. A silver strand seen out of the corner of her eye was her clue that the older woman had sneaked up on her. 'I'm watching, lass. Do not even _think_ of listening in.'

She removed her finger and concentrated instead on the data from the long range sensors and the time radar, and tried to ignore the pat on the shoulder that was a hairsbreadth away from making her want to just emulate her hot headed spouse and punch someone's face in.

* * *

Mamoru waited until the door irised closed behind them before he turned on his younger brother. Harlock stood with his back to him, hands in his pockets, instead of his usual couldn't-give-a-fuck pose leaning against the nearest wall. 'You have something to say, say it,' he told Harlock bluntly. 'Otherwise get your skinny arse back in there and do your damned job.'

'Job? Is that what this is, to you?' Harlock turned to face Mamoru, eyes blazing. 'Always a job to you isn't it? Sitting on your well-upholstered arse in your office with the window view over Heiligenstadt, behind the nice desk, sitting in the expensive executive chair that has more controls on it than that weapons console, moving numbers around all day and going home to the sweet wife and the beautiful daughters at night? Perish the thought that Mister perfect husband, father and CEO should ever get his hands dirty. Or struggle to sleep at night. Some days I'm not sure how you even take a shit with that fence up your arse.'

'Is that all you think this is to me?' Mamoru had to stuff his own hands in his pockets before he planted a fist in the idiot's solar plexus. 'You think I make the decisions I do because I'm what - a coward? A bean counter? I came for _you_ , brother. You and Tochiro, because you're both my brothers. This isn't a _job_ , Phantom. It's what I do. I protect this family, whatever it takes. And if that means protecting you from yourself, then that's what I'll do. If it means protecting them from the consequences of _our_ actions, then I'll bloody well do it. If it means swallowing my pride and letting someone slip through my fingers who deserves a bullet in the head, then I'll suck that up and do it. Because - and this is the bit you never, ever learn - sometimes you have to take a longer view.'

'Easy to say when you're not on the front line,' Harlock snarled. 'I don't see you out here getting shot at.'

'In case you'd forgotten I get shot at plenty just for being behind my "nice desk",' Mamoru shot back. 'You're pissed because I didn't let you cross a line? Get over it. As I recall you stopped me from doing just that down there so you do _not_ get to call me out for trying to stop you from crossing a bigger one.'

'Happy enough though to let me do your dirty work for you?' Harlock sneered.

The crack echoed in the corridor as Mamoru's hand connected with Harlock's face. The red handprint stood out starkly against Harlock's pale skin as he stared at his brother. 'Okay. Fine I had that one coming,' the younger man said eventually. It was, Mamoru knew, as close to an apology as he was likely to get.

'It would have been my choice as to whether I let him live or die,' Mamoru replied softly, after a long pause. 'My wife. My daughters.'

'My sister-in-law. My nieces,' Harlock pointed out. 'Our home. Our family. He shot you in the back, and he'd have done it again. And I know you, aniki. You're not a killer. A fighter, yes, and you _can_ kill, but not in cold blood. And that was one hell of a beating you laid down on Nevich. If he'd come at you, I don't doubt you'd have drilled him - but that's a whole different scenario. You shouldn't be the one to put down a man like that. That's what men like me are for. Men like Nevich, that Harken… Doppler... Hechi… they _need_ to be taken down. Permanently. Before they do even more damage than they already have. I don't doubt for a moment you'd have put one between the bastard's eyes yourself, but I know what that would have cost you and be damned if I was going to stand by and let him have the last laugh like that. I never want to see the look in your eyes that I see in the mirror…'

'Phantom…'

'You don't see it, nii san. Not out here. You can read about it in the reports Justin and his sons send you, or in whatever passes for news back home through the censors, but you don't _see_ it. You haven't _felt_ it. Staring out a viewscreen at what should have been a military fleet and seeing bodies floating in the dark - tiny bodies, nii san. Children even younger than Richard or Stefan. Colonists pushed into making stupid choices because people like Doppler have an agenda and it suits them to wave Earth in front of them like some universal panacea for everything wrong with their lives. Colonists who die either because their ships aren't up to code - because Zone and Nevich and others like them don't give a shit about safety when they can make a profit - or because the people who tell us where to go and who to shoot either don't know or don't care that not all of these flotillas are battlegroups.'

He stared down into his older brother's eyes, his own almost whirling with the frantic need to explain. 'Except it doesn't matter anymore does it? Because if they keep on coming they'll trample over everything in their path - us, each other - it's a tsunami, nii san. A rising tidal wave of humanity that can't be stopped. There are too many and they're too desperate. Someone somewhere set this rolling, but it's well out of control, and there's fuck all any of us can do about it. After all - where could we go to escape it? The very worlds everyone else is so desperate to leave?' He slammed a fist into the nearest wall. 'The very people who should have worked to prevent this have all acted to escalate it. The corporations have been making money out of shipping and armaments hand over fist and every demagogue with an opinion has thousands if not millions of followers convinced that they're the Promised Few who will inherit the Earth.'

Mamoru stood silently, waiting until he ran out of breath, leaning against the wall on that one bruised fist, panting slightly, his long hair sweat-slicked against his face, covering the scar on his cheek. 'I see more than you think, little brother. Do you think all I've been doing is sitting on my well upholstered arse? Justin and I have been working for years to try to establish not only an intelligence network, but also lifelines and supply lines out in the colonies. It's slow, painful work, but it might just offer some kind of hope. I pray we won't need it, but I know we will.'

'It's not enough. It can't possibly be enough.'

'What's the alternative? Killing those whipping up this frenzy or capitalising on it won't stop it now. Humanity is swarming back to Earth like a plague of locusts, and pretty much as single-minded. There might be multiple waves with different reasons, but that doesn't matter to those of us in their path. There's no head to cut off, not any more. I'm not sure there ever was.'

'And yet you still think there's something you can do to make plans for the future?' Harlock shook his head. 'All we can do now is fight.'

'You'd have us maybe use weapons like that planet killer in El Alamein?' Mamoru retorted. 'Because that's what it will take. Not even your Deathshadow fleet can stop this tide from coming in.'

'It might just come to that,' Harlock muttered, unable to meet his brother's clear hazel gaze. 'God help us, it might just come to that…'

'You remember our family history?' Mamoru asked softly. 'That bust in the long gallery - the man who tried to remove one of the most evil men who ever lived and bring to an end a dreadful, murderous regime during the war that saw the first use of nuclear weapons?'

'I remember,' Harlock replied sulkily.

'We could argue the merits of attempting and failing to do the right thing rather than stand by whilst millions die,' Mamoru continued. 'But I want you to think about this: He failed - not due to his own efforts but because of circumstances outside of his control, and sheer bad luck. And the end result was seven thousand people arrested, including the families of those involved - even the children. Almost five thousand of them executed - including our ancestor. Those in command also used the plot as an excuse to settle a few old scores along the way. It's called the Law of Unintended Consequences, Albrecht.'

'I also remember that one of those conspirators said "A human being's moral integrity begins when he is prepared to sacrifice his life for his convictions."' Harlock replied quietly.

'You get to sacrifice your _own_ life,' Mamoru replied sharply. 'It's when you sacrifice others without their consent that you cross another line. When you find yourself talking about omelettes, eggs, the "greater good" and my personal unfavourite "collateral damage", it's time to start re-evaluating just where it is on that line you're standing. When you start lashing out in anger, when you act before you think, others get hurt. When you start to believe that the end justifies the means, that way lies the slippery slope to being the man in the bunker, not the man with the briefcase, baby brother. I don't want you to be the man staring down the business end of a pistol because someone thinks _you_ need to be stopped. Dammit, Albrecht - I brought you up to be better than that.'

'You also brought me up to do the right thing,' Harlock replied, flushing slightly.

'The _right_ thing, baby brother. And more often the _necessary_ thing. Not the _easiest_. Any fool can put a gun in someone's face and pull the trigger. But once you do that, you can't take it back. You don't get to reset to a saved game and start over. You kill a multitude of futures every time you kill a man. And you and everyone around you has to live with the consequences.' Mamoru sighed and placed his hand on his brother's shoulder, looking up into his stormy dark eyes. 'You think it's easy, letting some of these bastards live, when I could just remove them? They're like cockroaches. Kill a few and more just take their place. But at least I can put a name to some of them, and if I can do that, I can track them. I can deal with them in ways they won't see coming. When I'm really lucky, some of them lead me back to their nest.'

'And what about the ones you leave alive who come after us? What about them, Mamoru? What happens when they don't stop coming? When your way doesn't work? Can you sleep at night then, nii san? We've got billions of people on the move, all wanting a piece of our home - how do you stop that without committing yourself to a body count that would make the worst dictators in history look like humanitarians?'

'I don't _know_!'

Harlock took a step backwards in the face of his brother's uncharacteristic bellow.

'Dammit, I don't have any answers for you. I don't have any for _me_. The only thing I do know is that I can defend our small piece of Earth with everything I have. I'll fight to protect those I love until only my bones remain if I have to, until I fall. It's all I can do. It's all any of us can do.' He sighed then. 'We've already lost this war. No matter what happens when those ships start to reach the Solar System. We either step aside and die, or we fight and die. No-one is coming out of this without red in their ledger. Not you, not me, not the Homecomers, not the Solar Federation…' He ran his fingers again through his hair, now almost as untidy as his brother's. 'And you were wrong, Phantom. "Men like me"? You're not that blasé about death. It eats at you just as much as it does me. That's half the problem - you feel it too damned much.'

'Maybe. And maybe one day I'll be facing the business end of that pistol and being judged for what _I've_ done.' Harlock replied grimly.

'Maybe both of us will,' was Mamoru's soft reply. 'History can be a harsh judge.' He shook his head sadly. 'If that day comes, I hope you face someone closer to my temperament than yours.'

Harlock laughed harshly. 'If it gets that far, _I_ don't. The last thing I'd deserve is forgiveness, if I cross that line you're so keen on defending.' He took a deep breath and stood up straighter. 'Ship's gearing up to jump. Guess we're out of here. Ready to go get Aunt Jules?'

Just like that, Mamoru thought with an internal sigh, he could and did call a halt to the discussion. 'I don't think my mother will need saving,' Mamoru drawled as he reached for the bridge door control. He hesitated, opened his mouth slightly and shut it again with a snap. Truthfully, there really wasn't anything more he could say.

''She's got Tochiro,' Harlock pointed out, pushing past him and reaching for the control over Mamoru's hand without so much as a by your leave. 'He can and will talk her bloody ears off…' He carried on walking even before the doors were fully open. '... I'd say she'll be begging to be rescued about now.'

Mamoru followed him into the room at a slower pace, taking his seat back from Komarova even as the ship translated into IN-space with its usual stretched-taffy effect on his body. Concentrating as they were on the navigation, no-one noticed his slight frown as he stared at his brother's lean back, and by the time anyone turned to ask him a question, he'd already schooled his face into his usual calm demeanour.


	17. Chapter 17

_**El Alamein system**_

 _ **Battlecruiser Shinano, Admiral Julia Okita commanding**_.

Tochiro lounged on his bed and stared up at the ceiling of his quarters - something of a waste of time since he couldn't actually see more than the off white blur of the standard fleet interior coating without his glasses, which were currently resting on the small bedside cabinet. Lost in thought, the door chimed three times before it finally percolated through to register that someone wanted in. Muttering under his breath he sat up awkwardly, and grabbed his pants, yanking them up and getting them fastened just as chime number four pinged. 'Okay, okay, I'm coming…' He opened the door to a blur in dark blue topped with silver, who strode past him without waiting for an invite. 'Admiral.' At least he remembered to salute, and finished the gesture by grabbing his glasses and shoving them into place. Well, he thought, at least he'd gotten that right, as Admiral Okita folded her arms and stood in front of him.

'You were due on the bridge ten minutes ago,' she chided. Whilst he floundered around like a carp on the cutting board looking for a reply that wasn't insubordinate, she sighed and sat down on the edge of the bed. 'Oh, just sit down, Tochiro. Technically you're not part of my command, and you're still on bed rest. But I did think you'd want to see the first readings from outside the system before we head in to take this machine out.'

He blushed, because yes, he had been supposed to be acting as a consultant, despite still being on medical "leave". 'Sorry, Aunt Jules.' Since she seemed to be cutting him some slack, he sat down next to her, relieved not to have to stand on his still sore feet. She sighed, looking him over much like his own mother would have done.

'Oh kiddo… just look at you. You're as skinny as that idiot brother of Mamoru's.'

He blushed, belatedly realising he hadn't grabbed a t shirt to pull on. 'I…'

'Relax. I've seen more skin in my time. Including your scrawny little ass when you were little more than a nugget, since your father saw fit to keep dropping you off with Sebastian. God knows why - he couldn't even keep track of his own offspring.' She snorted. 'Never saw a pair of more useless ne'er do wells until you and Albrecht started raising hell together…'

'Hey!' He bristled at that, because whilst he - and Harlock - could get a bit... _focussed_... from time to time, he didn't think they came even close to their fathers' levels of parental absence.

Well… at least until this bloody "war" got in the way…

'Give me time to grab a shirt,' he replied eventually, settling on meek obedience. 'I'll be there.' He reached for the dark t lying in a crumpled heap at the end of the bed, then put it down before giving it the usual sniff test, and instead got up, opened the drawer next to Okita, and grabbed a fresh one. And a pair of clean socks whilst he was there. The jacket, recently liberated from stores, he hadn't even worn yet so at least that wouldn't offend anyone.

'Any news from Harlock and Mamoru?' he asked, with his face stuffed into the neck of the t shirt muffled by the fabric. He gave it a yank and cursed as his glasses dropped to the floor. 'Bugger.' The admiral leaned over and picked them up, handing them to him once he'd tugged the garment into place. 'Ta.'

'Left the system about an hour ago - given how fast the Deathshadow is they'll catch up to us in about six hours. The rest of the Second Fleet will be here in two, and we'll go after this device then.'

'Hmm.'

'Problem?'

He scratched a sudden itch on his left buttock. 'I think it might be better to wait for the _Deathshadow_ ,' he replied. 'I know she's small,' he said, raising a hand to forestall her objections, 'But this device… if they've got hyperspace rings arranged with maximum dispersion around the gas giant, they can target multiple targets with one plasma pulse. _Deathshadow's_ fast, manoeuvrable, and difficult to spot for standard sensors with her dark matter upgrade. Standard sensor arrays can't get a lock on - it's something Verdani suggested that we trialled on the _Deathshadow_ before installing it on the new fleet.'

'Is there anything you can do to improve our systems before we engage?'

He thought for a moment, and shook his head. 'It's related to dark matter infusion throughout the hull. I can work on your countermeasures, but I can't make your ships as slippery as the Deathshadows.'

'I'm starting to think they'll earn that name,' Okita replied bluntly. She ran her fingers through her short silver hair. 'I'm tempted to wait for Mamoru, but it's one ship. If Doppler's people are aware that this site is compromised, they'll move in to close it down and we'd never find this device again. And I'm not leaving something this powerful in their hands.' She stood up, topping his five and a half feet by about three inches. 'Analyse the data the _Deathshadow_ copied over - look for anything that might give me an edge.' He grinned, and the smile grew even wider when he saw realisation dawn.

'You weren't just lying around idle, were you?'

He picked up his jacket and slung it casually over one shoulder. 'Never could turn it off - that's Harlock's thing.' He tapped the side of his head with a finger. 'Drives Liesl crazy some nights, coz she knows I'm lying there ticking over like a clock, cogs whirring, she calls it. Do some of my best thinking when everyone thinks I'm just goofing off. Hell - had a brainwave about those new oscillator cannon in the chapel whilst bang…' he coughed. 'Anyway. I need to have words with your techs. Give me an hour or so and we'll hopefully be able to track those damn rings before they open up. There's gotta be a subspace connection between them to keep them aligned, even when not in use, or you'd never be able to keep that plasma stream on target.' He scratched his ear. 'You know… they definitely got hold of grandad's specs for that inter planetary express system. If I could send a message back to dad…'

'No can do. We're incommunicado out here, remember?'

'I can encrypt it,' he muttered. She smiled.

'I don't doubt it for a moment. But unless you can also remove all traces from the logs, you're going to have to make do with just one big brain. I'm treading a very fine line out here, and if anyone finds out I could have called home for orders about this weapon instead of blowing it to kingdom come…'

He blushed, realising he should have thought of that. She patted his shoulder. 'I happen to agree with my son on this one - it might be a game changer, but some ideas are best left on the drawing board.'

'You don't think that a weapon capable of wiping out an entire fleet with one shot has a place in war?' He was genuinely curious about her answer.

Okita didn't even hesitate. 'A fleet is where it starts. Virtually unlimited plasma from a sub-solar gas giant? That could wipe out a solar system. Some slopes you/just don't start running down, Tochiro, because it's impossible to stop once you start. Space warfare is a bit of a crapshoot, usually averted because it's possible to outmanoeuvre or just plain avoid a fight unless you really want one, or you take it into planetary orbit. It's a polite fiction that allows us to bare our teeth, growl and kick ass, allowing someone to back down without losing face. Once you change the rules of engagement, things escalate and they escalate badly…' She gave him a sharp look as she steered him out of the cabin. 'Why is it, Tochiro, you look like you're six again and I just caught you and Albrecht with your hands in the cookie jar?'

He laughed nervously, and stuffed his hands in his pockets. 'Sa ne.'

'Fuzakeruna. Don't give me that, Oyama Toshiro. I've dealt with your grandfather, father and Albrecht's wastrel father, and all of you pull that same shit when you're Up To Something. The pair of you have been looking far too furtive since you came back from Niflheim, and I'm wishing now I'd had some oversight on that Dark Matter Project instead of being stuck out on patrol in the boonies.'

'It's just a power source,' he muttered.

'Alien technology. A potentially limitless energy source, self-repairing ships with a power source that can power weaponry with devastating potential? Just how clueless do you think I am, Tochiro? Once we're done here, I fully intend to deliver you back home and you, Albrecht, Mamoru and I will be sitting down with your father to have a long talk about just what the hell it is you're building in that dry dock.'

'I'm not Zone or Hechi,' he snapped back, an uncharacteristic loss of temper. 'I know what I'm doing.'

'So did your grandfather,' Okita retorted. 'And just look what that pair of incompetent, thieving assholes have done with his hyperspace tech.' She sighed. 'It's all roses and ploughshares isn't it, on the drawing board? But look at this situation, Tochiro. Take a long hard look. You don't even have your grandfather's excuse of building a transport system - you're working with weapons of mass destruction right out of the trap. This Nibelung tech has terrible potential…'

'But it could also be what saves us,' Tochiro pointed out. 'The ships… they're more a proof of concept and honestly, we need them.'

'To kill our own?'

He bit his lip. 'There's stuff out there, Aunt Jules… Things the Nibelung showed me… The Fleet are willing to put up the funds, but…' He scuffed the floor with the toe of his boot, staring at the thin scratch it left. 'D'y'ever stop to ask why all these people are on the move?' he blurted, staring up into her eyes. 'I mean… so many, all at once? Doesn't it seem all kinds of wrong that something like this could happen so fast?'

'I…'

The warning klaxon went off before she could finish, half deafening them. Tochiro pulled his hands out of his pockets and stuffed them over his ears whilst he made a run for the bridge, his shorter legs struggling to keep up with Okita's longer stride. 'Bloody hell… we're on a ship - just how loud does that thing need to be?' He stuck his finger in his left ear and wriggled it around. 'Ow.'

'Take point on sensors,' she told him, already seating herself in the captain's chair. 'XO?'

'Active sensor probe detected the moment our back-up arrived,' the young man in the seat next to the one Tochiro was apologetically appropriating from its incumbent replied. 'I think we've got a faint trace from one of those hypergates…'

'On it,' Tochiro interjected. He vanished under the console to the amusement of the bridge crew, his bottom sticking up in the air. 'Just need to…' he backed out, unfortunately not far enough, and smacked his head against the underside of the console. 'Ow.' He accepted a hand up from the sensor tech. 'Thanks, Miyuki.' He slipped back into the chair and began sweeping his fingers across the touchscreen. 'Just a little… Ha! Got ya!'

'Aihara?'

The XO studied the new readouts. 'Oh shit…'

Okita let the comment slide, leaning forward in her seat and staring at the viewscreen. 'I thought we were jumping outside the ring system?'

'According to the data from the _Deathshadow_ and the _Falcon_ , we were.' Aihara pulled up the graphic showing the rings detected by the _Deathshadow_ only days ago. 'They aren't in fixed position!'

'I can see that - how are they moving them?'

'Subspace engines,' Tochiro replied. He pulled up a schematic on the main screen, tiling the existing displays. 'They don't have to be powerful or big, if you only plan to move stuff within a few AUs. Drop them into sub-space for a couple of seconds and move them around like pieces on a GO-board…'

'Well those _pieces_ have turned this into a killing zone, 'Aihara snapped at him.

'Are we being targeted yet?' Okita sat back in her chair, her eyes not leaving the display as it changed again to display the information coming in as tiny dots marking the rings appeared.

'Not yet.'

'Then why are they waiting?' Miyuki stood next to her console, arms folded. A pretty blonde woman in her mid-twenties, a frown crinkled the smooth skin between her eyes, causing her to wrinkle her nose.

'Plasma generation lag,' Tochiro replied. The only downside to this weapon - it takes a while to charge, and you can't hold it in readiness.' He tsked. 'Typical Zone. Thinks big but never thinks things through…'

'Then we can get the jump on him,' Okita replied with a satisfied smirk. 'Aihara - relay to the fleet: target all of those rings. I want them out of my space.'

'But…'

Tochiro was cut off by her raised hand. 'Lieutenant Oyama - give my tech back her seat for now. All ships - on my mark, fire!'

'Thanks for the upgrade,' Miyuki whispered to Tochiro as she took her seat back.

'Yeah,' he muttered, staring at the screen, his frown driving a deep furrow in his brow. 'But it's not enough…'

Outside the ship, blasts from the optical cannon of the assembled ships of the Second Fleet lit up space as they targeted the hyperspace rings, darting in and out of IN-SPACE in a coordinated pattern that was relayed to the main viewscreen of the _Shinano_ even as it performed its own dance.

Still muttering under his breath, Tochiro shooed one of the sensor techs from his seat and began running his own programme, tongue between his teeth, hands dancing over the touchscreen.

'Fifteen rings out of commission!' Miyuki turned in her chair to speak to Okita. 'That's over half the outer sphere in this sector!'

'Step it up,' Tochiro called out. 'That plasma build-up is reaching critical… but I still don't think…'

''Twenty-five!'

'They've not optimised the plasma collector,' Tochiro muttered. 'It's the only reason we're not dead already…' His console beeped at him. 'Plasma streams detected!'

Aihara gulped. 'Thirteen streams!'

'Impossible!' Okita leaned forwards, staring at the screams. 'Baka na… we've taken out…'

Three blips on the screen vanished.

'Screens!' Okita ordered. 'Evasive manoeuvres!'

'Blast screen!' Tochiro called out. 'Shut down the viewer!'

Too late, as the ship turned out of the path of the plasma stream, the bridge crew were half-blinded by the light flooding in from the main viewer even as the blast shield came down. The station next to Tochiro overloaded, sending fragments flying around the bridge. Blinking away the overflash, Tochiro cursed under his breath and frantically swiped his touchscreen. Blood dripped into his eyes from a sharp pain above his right eye where a small hot shard had just missed his eyebrow. The coppery taste of blood filled his mouth, his nose, fighting against the sharp tang of ozone and burnt plastic for attention.

The young officer at that station hadn't been so lucky.

'Oyama?' Okita's voice rapped out.

'It wasn't enough to take out the outer rings. It's a fallacy to assume that they need to be close in - all they had to do was re-route to the previous level - the beam was less concentrated, but still effective.'

'Reports of damage and losses coming in,' Aihara called out. 'Five ships destroyed, six with severe hull damage. We've got some minor hull damage on the starboard flank, nothing serious, the repair bots are already on it.'

'Seven ships left, including us…' Okita mused as she sat back in her seat. 'Dammit. Oyama - how long until that plasma beam is re-charged?'

'Best guess maybe five minutes. Depends on how quickly they can reset and redeploy. The only way to completely shut it down…'

'Is to take out the actual hydrogen scoops and the main rings that generate the plasma for transmission.' Okita sighed heavily. 'Except we can't leave the damaged ships here,' she continued. 'They've got no defence, they're sitting ducks.'

Scanning the time radar trace Aihara blanched. 'Oh, bloody hell… incoming!'

This time it wasn't a series of beams criss-crossing through the small fleet. From multiple directions the plasma formed waves, bearing down on the ships, crashing against them and leaving them scattered and shattered in their wake. The _Shinano_ was caught by the very edge of one bright, incandescent arc, her shields barely enough to deflect the destruction rained down on her, but even a glancing blow was enough to rip through her hull, and she twisted awkwardly as her internal gravity shuddered, sending further shockwaves through her frame before she stabilised as the backups kicked in.

The rest of the fleet was not so fortunate. Even with the time delay between detection and the arrival of the leading edge of the brilliant storm, the ships had little time to get out of harm's way. They'd been comprehensively outflanked, and in the killing zone there'd been nowhere to run. The overlapping wavefronts had left little in the way of a safe harbour.

After the wave had passed, only three other blips remained on screen.

Tochiro ran from his seat to pick Miyuki up from where she'd fallen, tossed around the bridge like so much flotsam when the gravity had gone haywire. Aihara, himself bleeding from a cut that ran through his right eyebrow, hauled himself back into his chair, cradling his left arm.

'Admiral?' Aihara called back. He had to shout over the cacophony of warning klaxons, until Tochiro leaned under the console next to his own and yanked out a cable. Silence fell across the bridge, although the emergency lighting remained, casting a hellish red glow over the room.

'Bruised but never mind me - I want a casualty report, all sections.'

'Engineering took a bad hit - the main drives are out, and we lost thirty behind the bulkheads when the section vented to kill the fires. Medical reports they've burns and broken bones coming in. We were tossed around quite badly. Maybe another hundred caught behind bulkheads that slammed down, unaccounted for, but most of those…' he trailed off. Swallowed hard. 'Admiral - the hull on the starboard side took a major hit. We've lost weapons on that side and on the main deck, and hull integrity is shot. If anyone's trapped between here and the starboard weapon stations, they're already dead.'

'Admiral.' Tochiro stood in front of her, as close to attention as he could manage. The artificial gravity hadn't fully recovered and the micro fluctuations were making him feel queasy. 'We can't take another hit - they're a step ahead of us - point attacks from the outer rings were one thing, but this - they cut the outer rings out and allowed the plasma arcs to spread out. Less accurate, but that doesn't matter when you flood an area. Wherever you jump in-system, they'll have you because we can't predict which part of the ring system they'll use. We should pull out and wait for the _Deathshadow…'_

'It's not your call to make suggestions to an Admiral, _lieutenant_ ,' Aihara snapped at him. Okita raised her hand wearily to shut him up.

'He's right, XO. We can't fight this. Not this way... Aihara - take us in close to our least damaged ship.'

'The _Orochi_ , sir.'

She nodded. 'Oyama - I want you to take shuttles over to the _Orochi_. Load as many of the wounded as you can.'

'We don't have time - ' Tochiro began.

'Not if you stand here arguing. Go. Aihara will send over the datastream from the sensors. Analyse it. Find a way to stop this thing permanently.' When he stood staring at her numbly, she gestured to one of the marines helping to clear debris from the weapons console. 'You - escort lieutenant Oyama to a shuttle and see he stays on it.'

'Yes sir.' Tochiro was not-so gently pulled off the bridge, protesting all the way. Okita sat back again, her hands gripping the arms of her chair. 'Aihara?'

'Yes sir?'

'Send a message to the _Orochi_. Tell them our wounded are coming over, and as soon as they can spin up their drive, I want them out of here. Link to the _Susanoo_ and the _Amaterasu_ and tell them to overlap their shields with ours to protect the _Orochi_.'

'Yes sir.'

'And XO?'

'Sir?' He kept his back to her, ramrod straight.

'If anyone wants to leave, I won't hold it against them.' Okita looked around the bridge at her battered officers. Miyuki shrugged and went back to checking her display. Others just shook their heads. She smiled sadly. 'Aihara?'

'Message away, Admiral. Medical are loading the least wounded, as per orders.' Those who stood a chance, he thought, but said nothing. 'It'll be tight.'

'We just need to give them long enough, XO. Full power to be diverted to shields ready to deploy as soon as that last shuttle is away.'

'They won't hold for long,' he murmured into his commlink so that only she could hear.

'Long enough will do, XO,' she answered back via the 'link. 'Long enough is all I ask for.'

* * *

Struggling in the grip of a large-pawed marine was futile, but that had never stopped Tochiro. He put up a fight right until the gorilla frog-marching him through the damaged corridors gave him a shove into the first escape craft the came upon, leaving him banging helplessly on the metal doors of the airlock.

'Fuck.' He slumped down into a heap against the wall, and stared at the rest of the occupants listlessly as the small craft left the gravitational field of the larger ship. Groans and cries of pain mingled with the crisp but flagging voices of medics trying to stabilise their patients. The air stank of smoke from the air cycled in from the corridors of the damaged ship, as well as blood, bile, shit and piss as medics worked in impossible circumstances, and over all of that was the crispy barbeque scent of cooked meat. Fighting back a mouthful of bile, Tochiro scrambled to his feet and made his way through the gurneys to where one young medic - a skinny man of Japanese ancestry - was cursing as he tried to restrain a flailing burn victim. 'Here.' Even after quickly dousing them in antiseptic his hands were probably none too clean but right now that was the least of anyone's problems. The young medic gave him a nod of thanks as Tochiro held down his patient long enough for the medic to get a line into his arm. Sedated as last, the patient sighed and relaxed.

'Thanks.'

'No problem. Just tell me what you need.'

'More supplies, more room and a stable platform to operate would be good,' the medic replied sarcastically. 'You're not medical…?'

'Engineering.'

'Close enough.'

'I thought they were only evacuating the walking wounded?' Tochiro stared around as the medic snapped out terse instructions on where to put his hands.

'That's navy-speak for anyone who actually stands a decent chance of survival. Hold that clamp for me would you?'

'Chance…' Tochiro's gaze swept the cramped quarters of the shuttle. Whilst there were several members of the crew sporting broken arms or lesser burns, the majority were on gurneys, being worked on.

'Anyone who can still do their job stayed behind,' the medic at the next gurney - a tall blonde woman in her late forties, replied wearily. 'And there's no point moving anyone terminal or borderline.'

Although he couldn't see through the hull, Tochiro's gaze moved to the direction of the ship they'd left behind. The cold, harsh reality of space combat left a nasty taste in his mouth. 'But…'

'You're not front-line, are you?' his younger medic asked, not taking his eyes - or his hands - from their work.

'R&D,' Tochiro replied. 'Got caught up in this by accident.'

'You're one of those guys from the _Yukikaze_?' Tochiro nodded before realising no-one was actually looking at him.

'Yeah.'

'You got Sanada's fleet to safety, I heard. That captain… bit of a wildcard?'

'You could say that.' There was a slight bump as the shuttle set down, and full gravity returned.

'I'd like a chance to thank him. My sister was on one of those ships who got out thanks to him.'

Tochiro couldn't think of anything to say. He glanced towards the airlock, wondering why it hadn't opened yet.

'Doors won't open,' the older medic said quietly as she worked. 'Standard protocol - get the hell out of dodge first, then sort out the mess.' She straightened, and stared down at her charge, before pulling the sheet over his face. 'Fuck. Call it,' she told the girl assisting her. Without a pause she moved on to the next gurney, leaning over a young man with half his face covered in burns gauze. 'Hey handsome, let's see what we can do for you…'

Tochiro felt the tell-tale pressure in his sinuses that he always associated with the moment a ship went IN-SKIP, just as the lights flickered and dimmed in the hold.

'Bollocks… get some lights up!' someone called out. The emergency lighting came on but the faint red lights were utterly inadequate. Tochiro cleared his throat. 'Can you manage without me?' he asked. His young medic looked up briefly, saw the look in his eyes, and nodded. 'Go - do your thing.'

'I can get the lights on, and the air,' he called out as he made his way as carefully as he could aft, to the control panel. 'Might help to breathe a bit easier in here…'

'Can you up the oxygen safely?' someone asked. Another medic, a man in his late thirties, or thereabouts - it was hard to tell as his face was streaked with dirt and blood. 'Just a couple of points - it'll help those with damaged lungs.'

'As long as no-one lights up,' he quipped as he started work on the panel.

Wires and circuit boards blurred into an amorphous mass for a moment, and he had to pull his glasses off to wipe his eyes on his sleeve. _Aunt Julia_ …

The ship shuddered for a second time as the vessel carrying it came out of IN-space.

 _Ah, crap… how the hell am I gonna tell Mamoru?_


	18. Chapter 18

_**Deathshadow Zero**_

Maya picked up the emergency signal within seconds of them exiting IN-space. 'It's the _Orochi_ ,' she told Mamoru, who was leaning back in his chair, trying to avoid the fact that his brother was hovering near his left shoulder. If his backside left the seat for any reason he suspected the lanky bugger would be in it before he'd reached the door.

'Just the _Orochi_?' Harlock asked with a frown, he took a step forward. 'Put…'

'Put it on speaker,' Mamoru interjected, backhanding Harlock somewhere around his midsection as a reminder that he wasn't the bloody captain on _this_ ship and ignoring the resulting glare.

'...Repeat, this is the Battlecruiser _Orochi_ , requesting assistance. Hull compromised, engines down. Galactic coordinates…'

'Risky, in this neck of the woods,' Con remarked. 'We've already seen that Doppler and Co. have got parasites out here scavenging for slaves and tech.'

'Then we need to get there first,' Mamoru replied. 'How soon can we get there?'

'I can plot a short IN-SKIP jump,' Montoya replied. 'As long as they aren't drifting too fast.'

''Pop us out about an AU back from that last location on their current trajectory,' Mamoru told him. 'I'd hate to land on top of them, and we can scan from there, but if the hull's compromised I don't want to have to take any longer to match delta-V than we have to.'

Montoya nodded and started to key in his calculations.

'Harlock's right though,' Maya said softly. 'Why just the one ship? Your mother was planning on adding at least six more to her group, wasn't she?'

'Time enough to worry about that once we talk to them,' Mamoru said quietly. Although his voice was calm, Harlock noticed his brother's hand gripping the arm of the captain's chair, and laid his own on it. Mamoru flicked his gaze up to his brother's sherry-dark eyes and tried to essay a reassuring smile. 'Bloody hell, nii-san, you might want to practice that one,' Harlock whispered as he bent slightly to lower his head to closer to his brother's ear. 'She's a tough cookie. How often do you tell _me_ not to buy trouble?'

'She wouldn't leave a damaged ship out here alone…' Mamoru muttered. He stared at the currently dark viewscreen, as though will alone could see through the peculiar existence-stroke- non-existence of subspace. Maya risked a look back over her shoulder, caught her husband's tiny shake of his dark head and turned back to her console to concentrate on cleaning up the signal, in the hopes that there might be more information lost in the static.

* * *

On the main viewscreen the ship drifted, a tiny speck barely big enough to block the smallest patch of starry space from view. Normally an unshielded ship would stand out on the scanners as a bright pinpoint of energy from her drives, but the Orochi's drives barely registered, powered down and cold. The Deathshadow's scanners played over her hull, relaying a torrent of data to the bridge, none of it good.

'She's taken a lot of damage,' Con said in an unusually subdued tone. 'The outer hull's badly debrided and I've never seen that level of slagging of tectite before… what wasn't just boiled away has just melted. There's a hole right through the ship where the battle bridge used to be and I can see right through to the superstructure.'

'Life signs?' Mamoru asked, his voice barely above a hoarse whisper.

'Minimal. Mostly from the port side hangar section. Enclosed hot spots so I'm thinking transports operating on their own life support. The ship's systems are fried, apart from the distress beacon, which is operating off its emergency back-up. The back-up for life support is just part of that big hole…'

'No sign of the Shinano or any of the rest of the fleet?' Harlock's tone was almost flat.

'Nothing on long or short range scanners,' Con told him. 'Captain?'

'Close with the Orochi, hold with our tractor system and send out boarding tubes. Medical and engineering with a marine escort,' Mamoru ordered. 'By the book, people. Concentrate on the clusters of life signs, then move in. Section by section sweep, and work fast - I don't like the look of the readings I'm seeing on the structural integrity…'

'Won't the tubes risk damaging the structure?' Harlock asked. 'They hit with one hell of a thud…'

'They do the way _you_ deploy them…' Mamoru shook his head. 'You do know they can soft-dock?'

Harlock shrugged. 'Under battle conditions, I'm not going to waste time on foreplay.'

Con sniggered, breaking the tension on the bridge. 'Love is a battlefield, eh, Harlock?'

'Fuck you.'

'You're not my type.'

Harlock turned his back on Jones and stared down at his brother. 'I'll go over with the rescue team.'

'No.' Mamoru's flat reply was quiet, but intense.

Harlock scowled at him. 'Any particular reason?'

'You're not far off seven feet tall in a hardsuit and there are likely to be tight squeezes on a compromised ship that's taken this much damage?' This from Michaelides, who'd snuck onto the bridge at some point and had been standing quietly in the shadows near the exit. Mamoru turned in his seat and smiled at her before waving her forward.

'Couldn't have put it better myself. Stand down, baby brother - she's right. I don't want to have to send anyone in to cut you free because you rush into a tight spot without looking.'

'Or knock himself out on the ceiling struts,' Maya murmured, earning herself a scowl. 'Tochiro thought it was funny…' she added.

'He always does…' Harlock's voice trailed off and he stared at the screen as if expecting it to suddenly give him answers. 'If he's still on the _Shinano…'_

'One way or another we'll know soon enough, and you know me well enough by now to know I'll do all I can,' Mamoru chided him gently. 'But right now we have a job to do.'

Harlock inclined his head slightly, but Maya caught the rebellious set to his mouth as he did so. But at least for now he'd acquiesced, although she didn't expect it to last.

* * *

 _ **Battleship Orochi: Shuttle hanger 2**_

 _I'm going to die here_ …

Tochiro shook his head to try and clear it, but nothing was shifting that voice in his head that had been whispering to him ever since he'd felt the ship come out of IN-Space and start to drift. Not even trying to distract himself by staying busy trying to keep the shuttle with power and life support so that the medics could do their job of repairing more fragile systems.

 _It's not fair… I'm not done yet… So much to do… to learn… to see_ …

'Oh, man up,' he muttered to the whiny little shite in his head.

'Pardon?'

He laughed nervously. 'Sorry. Talking to myself. My inner whiny twat won't shut up.'

The man next to him, in engineering greens, managed a grimace. 'The one that keeps telling you you're utterly fucked?'

'He talks to you too? The two-timing little fucker…' Despite the situation, they both chuckled. Tochiro spared a look at his colleague. Younger than he was - maybe early twenties. A bandage around his head. Bandage on his right arm from the shoulder to the elbow. Bloodstains on the green coveralls. 'Do me a favour would you?' He handed the young tech his torch. 'Hold this and aim here…' He pointed to a section of the innards of the panel he'd just dismantled. 'Makes my teeth ache holding it in my mouth…' He watched as the younger man shifted himself painfully into position, and winced in sympathy. _Yeah… it's the aches that get you, afterwards… bone-deep, that nothing ever seems to reach_ , and like Tochiro, the youngster looked as though he'd passed on the pain meds.

Others were in greater need.

'I'm Tochiro, by the way.'

'Sam.'

'Pleased ta meet ya, Sam. Now let's look at making sure these scrubbers have got a bit more life in 'em, shall we?'

'Isn't it dangerous, going from transport to transport like this on your own? How many of these have you done so far?' Sam asked, with a pointed look to Tochiro's oversized flightsuit and helmet - the latter of which was laying next to him, a battered faceplate staring up at him, next to a rebreather.

'You're the last,' Tochiro replied, his tongue caught between his teeth as he concentrated. 'I think that makes twelve in this hangar.'

'How many shuttles made it over?'

'No idea. Can't reach the second bay - there's a bloody great melted pool of tectite in the way where the main corridor used to be.' Hearing the younger man gulp audibly, he reached back and patted his hand. 'Shinpai shinaide, Sam. You do what you can and you work with what you've got. When I finish here I'll see if I can boost the sensors in here and get a reading - if there is a way round, I'll find it.'

'Need some help?'

Tochiro backed out and looked him in the eyes. Young, still boyishly slim, earnest, afraid, but game. 'Be dangerous.'

Sam shrugged. 'I signed up for this, didn't I?'

'I doubt _anyone_ signed up for this,' Tochiro muttered. He took a deep breath. Let it out in a whoosh. 'Fine. Go find a suit, then meet me in the cockpit. I think you're the only engineer still mobile, and I'd be daft to turn you down.' He watched the kid wriggle back into the main hold like an eager puppy, and tried not to let his worry show on his face. At least the kid hadn't asked _why_ he was the only uninjured tech he'd found so far on twelve pods… Turnover in Engineering on battleships was higher than frontline troops statistically, given the sheer scale of the power sources and systems they worked with.

Sam had found a suit and was waving the helmet at Tochiro, who waved back with his best cheery smile, pushed his glasses up his nose, and ducked back into the belly of the beast to finish up boosting the scrubbers. Time enough to worry about finding a way to reach the other shuttle hangar once this last one was sorted...

* * *

 _ **Deathshadow Zero**_

Mamoru stared at the image of the _Orochi_ on the screen. Con's transmission from the rescue team's recorders overlaid the sensor data of the state of the ship and the schematic and the external cam footage, highlighting the worst damage in red.

Most of the ship was amber or red; there was very little green, apart from one shuttle hangar.

'Bridge is gone,' Con told him over the comms, as the Deathshadow circled the dying ship. 'Must have been on auto once it left IN-space. The auxiliary computer system is operational, but everything else - including life support - is gone.'

'Life signs?'

'Just the shuttles in the hangars. Three clusters in the damaged bay, twelve in the other. Large clusters in the latter, by the way. I've got biosigns in the other bay compatible with about ten full shuttles, but only three are showing clusters of life signs for more than two or three people. A couple of blips in an internal corridor close to the other hangar.'

'Concentrate rescue efforts on that hangar and the main ship,' Mamoru ordered quietly. 'Priority to the shuttles at greatest risk. But move fast - I don't like those readings from the drive.' He stared at the readouts and the visible damage to the ship. 'She's been ripped almost in two - I'm amazed she's held together this long.'

'She's one of ours,' Harlock pointed out. 'Those Zone-built ships in Sanada's fleet were torn apart as though they were made of tissue paper.' He laid a hand on his brother's arm. 'Hopefully the Admiral was able to jump away…'

Mamoru didn't look at him. 'Fleet protocol is only to evacuate to shuttles when the ship is going down. Both hangars are carrying too many craft, which means more than one ship had time to move people across. She wouldn't do that unless she was ordering the _Orochi_ to bug out, and fast.'

'Con's on the line again,' Maya called out.

'Put him through.'

Con's holographic image appeared on the screen, the camera feed from the helmet of one of his crewmates wavering slightly. 'Gonna need some extra equipment, Captain. We've got a problem. He nodded, and offscreen the helmet can panned away from his opaque brassy faceplate to show the wreckage of a shuttle bay, the vessels on it crowded together in a haphazard formation, several having either crashed into each other, or had slid into each other as they drifted. 'No gravity, the hull's breached, and we can't move them off and tractor them on board the _Deathshadow_. We open those hatches and we open them to vacuum. There's no way to get the injured off without spacesuits, and we'd kill anyone we move that way.'

Someone cleared their throat. Mamoru turned to Harlock, who was frowning at the screen, arms folded, tapping his fingers on his upper arm. 'You have an idea?'

'Just trying to think like Tochiro here. Can we extend the _Deathshadow's_ shields over the affected areas long enough to transfer people to our own transports or the boarding tubes?'

'Jan?' Mamoru turned to the young engineer, who looked like a rabbit caught in the headlights of an oncoming vehicle. 'Since weapons and shields fall under your purview…'

The young man pulled a face. 'Tochiro could do it, yeah. But that guy's a genius. This ship's systems are one of a kind cutting-edge stuff - I've worked on them but the design is Oyama's - screw up and I'd risk overloading the system - that's precise work, you can't just blow it up like a balloon.'

'I know the system,' Harlock said quietly. When everyone from his wife, his brother and his former Academy instructor turned to stare at him, he bristled. 'What? Are you all forgetting that _I_ helped Tochiro build most of our ships? My _second_ degree was astro-navigation. Dad insisted I take the advanced engineering courses along with Tochiro - what I didn't study officially, I audited alongside him.' He smiled faintly. 'I also know how he thinks when he builds this stuff - if anyone can make it work, I can.'

'Go.' Mamoru turned to Jan, not waiting for his brother's reply. 'Grab a couple of willing hands from Engineering, help him.' The two left the bridge at a run. Mamoru placed two fingers against a throbbing temple. 'He's right… even I forget he's not just a hot-headed fly-boy…' he murmured.

Komarova snorted. 'To be fair, so does he most days…' She cracked her knuckles, the sound making everyone on the bridge flinch slightly. 'Dammit. I hate waiting.' Since no-one else on the bridge could argue with that, her comment went unremarked in the subdued atmosphere.

* * *

 _ **Battleship Orochi**_

The interior of the Orochi was dark, cold and airless. The plasma beam which had crippled the ship had left the entire central spine open to space, and done so in such a way that the crew had been taken completely by surprise. Systems which should normally have been protected by their backups had been crippled in the same single strike. The kind of damage she'd taken was unprecedented in battle, as no ship had ever wielded the kind of firepower she'd been hit with.

 _Until now_ … Tochiro thought, staring at the damage from just outside the hangar. He shivered. It wasn't the plasma weapon he was thinking of, but the new oscillator cannon he'd been working on with Mimay and Yngwie to install on the Deathshadow fleet, still in dry dock in orbit around Titan. Powerful, fast cycling and with three rows of four three-barrelled dimensional particle oscillator turrets as its main battery and four three-barrelled dimensional particle oscillator turrets as the second, his new ships' firepower wasn't on the planet-killing scale of the plasma stream, but it was still a game-changer for fleet to fleet combat.

Watching parts of machines and what had once been men and women floating in chaotic frozen free-fall, he found himself wondering for the first time if he was doing the right thing. His new ships would be more than capable of doing this much damage to a battleship, and more, once complete.

He hadn't really given much thought to exactly how much damage and destruction that implied for those aboard them.

 _Until now_ …

'Aunt Jules was right,' he muttered. 'Bit of a difference between theory and practice…'

'Lieutenant Oyama?' Sam's quiet tenor brought him back to the present, and the job in hand.

'Ah. Sorry. This… kind of took me a bit by surprise is all.'

'What did this, sir? We didn't hear much down in engineering. Just heard the clamour, then there was just fire and heat… like we'd gone too close to a sun or something, I heard the Chief say.'

'Plasma generator on a gas giant,' Tochiro replied absently. 'Uses hyperspace gates to target multiple locations. Bloody nasty.'

He heard the young man gulp as he stared around at the carnage. 'I never realised…' he whispered.

Tochiro patted him on the arm. 'No-one ever does, Sam. My granddad designed those gates thinking he could build a fast, cheap travel network, but never thought in a million years anyone would put them to such a twisted use. Took a really sick, twisted genius to come up with this one.' _Yeah… and I know who_...

'Who'd do such a thing?'

'Can't prove it, but my money's on a combo of the Director of Military Science and one of our military contractors.'

'But they're on our side. Aren't they?'

'Times like these, most corporations in the armaments industry are on their own side,' Tochiro ground out. 'Can't prove it mind you, but Director Hechi's got some nasty friends in high places, and Zone… well. They're in it for the money.' He tapped Sam's helmet. 'Come on. Make sure your tether's locked and stay close to me. I've got a path through the wreckage, but it's a bit of a slog and we're wide open out here. Watch where you put your feet and don't grab onto anything that might come off in your hand.'

'Looks more like it's all sort of fused and melted,' Sam replied doubtfully as he followed carefully in Tochiro's footsteps.

'Yeah. But tectite gets brittle when heated to these temperatures. Slag a ship hard enough in the right place, you could slam another ship into it and the hull'd shatter, without putting much more than a scratch on your own ship, if she's sturdy enough…'

Sam laughed. 'Seriously? Ramming? That's a suicidal move when you're all out of weapons and luck!'

Tochiro chuckled. 'Nah. Given it some thought over the years. But you'd need to have some serious firepower working for you first. Massive salvo, then crack the bastard like an egg…'

'It'd need to be one hell of a ship to pull it off,' Sam mused. 'And you'd need some seriously good inertial dampeners to protect the crew… You know, I've heard rumours that there's some research on self-repairing ships…'

'Umm.'

Inside his one-way vision faceplate, Sam smiled at the non-committal mumble. 'Might even have been near Titan?' he hazarded.

'Umm.' Tochiro stumbled slightly over a piece of the hull melted into the decking. 'Thanks,' he said, when Sam caught his arm.

'No problem.' Sam tapped Tochiro on the arm. 'Hey… the molecular structure of the hull would need some serious flex in the bonds at the atomic level, wouldn't it? And you'd need one hell of a pilot to pull it off - at those speeds you hit at the wrong angle or miss your targeted weak spot…'

'Kid, you read too much sci-fi,' Tochiro replied absently. 'It's doable, but takes a shitload of energy, that currently we can't generate safely with Earth-grown tech. Though you're right about the piloting.' He paused at an intersection, peering through the combination of the gloomy light cast by their helmet lamps, the grubby faceplate and his glasses, which didn't fit properly under the helmet and had slipped down his nose so that they were both uncomfortable and not seated properly to see through unless he tried to cross his eyes somewhere under his nostrils. 'Harlock was right… really should think about laser surgery…' he muttered. Except he hated the idea of someone fiddling around with his eyes like that, and until the military dropped their centuries old ban on contacts in pressurised, art-G environments, he was stuck with glasses. _Though given the chaos that had resulted when he'd managed to drop his glasses in the engine room of the Yukikaze…_ the thought of what damage a piece of plastic the size of a fingernail could do in delicate, high-powered systems… _Yeah. He'd be safer to invest in some of that string his grandmother used to use to keep hers around her neck…_ 'This way,' he said brightly, hoping he'd remembered the layout of this model correctly.

'Are you sure?' Sam's voice held that _I really don't want to upset this guy by telling them they've screwed up_ tone Tochiro himself used when confronted by a boneheaded manoeuvre - usually because it resulted in fewer black eyes than Harlock's _that's the wrong way, dickhead_ approach to life.

'Yeah. I'm sure. This is the direct route to the second hangar.' But since the kid hadn't so far struck him as someone who asked questions for the sake of hearing his own voice, he added: 'Why?'

Sam pointed down the other corridor. 'Because I can see some light flickering down there. Looks like the spectrum from a laser cutter…'

Tochiro looked, looked again to be sure, then grinned inside his helmet. 'Kid - you just saved us a trek.' Then to Sam's surprise he sat down against the far wall, and settled down to wait. After a brief hesitation, Sam joined him. 'Looks like the cavalry's here.'

'How can you tell?'

Tochiro patted him on the arm. 'Laser cutter, Sam. What does that tell you?'

The lad grinned behind his faceplate. 'Atmosphere. Which we knew that section doesn't have… But how the hell…?'

'Harlock.' Tochiro said with a satisfied smile and sigh as he leaned back against the bulkhead. 'Not just a pretty face, despite what it says on the head walls back on Titan Base…' He tapped the side of Sam's helmet when he noticed it start to tip forward a little. 'Oi - no sleeping just yet, Chief Coyne. They've extended the Deathshadow's - and it'd have to be them, before you ask - only ship I know that can do it - shields to cover us while they work. Once the Deathshadow's crew cut through there, we'll be needed. Gonna take some work to get these people off safely from this derelict, and that's up to us.'

'Us? And I'm not the chief,' Sam replied doubtfully. Tochiro's laugh was more weary than amused.

'Sam - you seen anyone else on this ship from Engineering who ranks above you?' He shook his head. 'Welcome to the realities of battlefield promotion - more work, no play, no rest and always something that needs fixing…' The cutaway the Deathshadow's crew were working on fell to the floor with a muffled clang in the low pressure. 'Up and at 'em, Chief. No rest for the weary.' He helped the kid up to his feet and greeted the hard-suited figures with a cheery wave.


	19. Chapter 19

Mamoru stared at the overcrowded sick bay and ran his fingers through his already disordered hair. 'How easy is it going to be to find more space for the medics to work?' He pressed himself against the wall as someone wheeled another gurney past him, and waited until the walking wounded being escorted down the _Deathshadow's_ corridor had limped past,

'We can retask the war room,' Komarova replied, looking down at a schematic. 'There aren't exactly many large rooms on this ship - most of the rear section is engines, and the forward decks are sensors and navigation.'

'Captain's quarters then?'

She stared at him. 'Well, yes… but…'

'Then have my room cleared,' he ordered quietly. 'I can share sleeping quarters for a few weeks, and we can operate everything from the bridge - the captain's office is more of a convenience than a necessity. We're well past our ability to cope in here.' He stared through the large window into the infirmary. 'Tell the medics to use the main infirmary for emergencies and surgical cases. All others to either crew quarters or the designated areas.'

'There's also the problem of just how to accommodate over a hundred and seventy people over and above the crew capacity for the ship,' she pointed out. 'We were already stretched with the evacuees from Dis and those marines…'

'Have engineering strip out the scrubbers from the _Orochi's_ transports,' he ordered. 'It seems Tochiro had them working in a new pattern to reduce the load and keep them working. Get our guys to talk to him once he's cleared for duty. Get Manfred to send a message to his brother Marius on Herise, tell him we'll need a transport as fast as he can arrange it. We should have a little leeway - we shipped out on a skeleton crew.'

'There's still food and water, even if we have people sleeping in corridors…'

'Talk to the quartermaster and work out rationing. Cut the showers for a start - we can manage with a catlick each for a few days. There were supplies in the transports - or should have been if they were properly maintained, which knowing my mother they would have been, or else. Send a party back over to strip the ship of anything they can find - most of the storage areas were undamaged. If the water tank is intact, work out a way of transferring their store to ours - if it comes down to it we'll use the transports for storage tanks, strip and clear. Even if it isn't potable, we can top up the grey water system.'

'But our flight deck…'

'Dump the fighters. They're fuck all use in battle anyway. We need all the space we can get.' When she nodded and turned to leave he snagged her sleeve. 'Wait - hold back two planes. I might have a use for them.' She nodded, and this time he allowed her to leave. Once she was out of sight he leaned back against the wall and buried his head in his hands. Just, he told himself, for a moment.

The moment didn't last long. Bootsteps - light, trip-trapping rather than stomping, impinged on his brief indulgence of "why me". He looked up and across into his sister-in-law's concerned face. 'Maya. I thought you'd be with…'

'He's in the infirmary, with Tochiro.' She shot a glance back over her shoulder, an expression on her face that briefly flickered into heartsick, before schooling herself back into the calm wall she'd put up for far too long now. 'I suggested they could use a little privacy…'

Since the med tech who'd attended his brother had a lamentable lack of tact and anything resembling keeping his mouth shut, he winced at her tone. Feeling a need to defend his younger sibling, he opened his mouth, but she raised her hand.

'I _know…_ I know it's not the same as his feelings for me… but there are times I can't help thinking the two of them would do better married to each other. God knows they're practically joined at the hip…'

'That would seriously cramp Tochiro's style,' he offered with a wry smile. She laughed briefly. 'You have that right. But as it happens, I need to talk to you anyway. Tochiro had some readings taken on board the _Shinano_. I think from those we can track the rest of the hypergates in that system…' she stopped, took a long hard look at his face, then stepped close in and hugged him impulsively. 'Oh Mamoru. I'm so sorry. With everything that's been going on rescuing the survivors…'

'We don't know they're gone.' He hugged her back, and released her, pushing her away gently. 'The Admiral's one tough, smart old buzzard. She wouldn't go down that easily.'

But it had been hours, and they were well within transmission range of the short range transmitters even if the _Shinano's_ powerful warp radio was down…

'Mamoru?'

He tried to smile past the hard knot in his chest, and failed miserably. 'The last thing I said to her… Shit. She'd been banging on about Miri again, and I practically told her where to shove it…' His fingers were almost tied into a knot in his hair as he spoke, and he flinched when she reached up as gently as Miranda would have done and pulled his hand away, taking it between her own two warm hands.

'You argued a lot about your life choices with her, Mamoru,' she told him. 'Do you cling onto all of those as the only memories worth holding onto?' Knowing his answer she continued: 'Then let go of this one. You and Harlock are so alike in one thing - if you dislike someone, unless and until they're in your face they don't exist for you. If you didn't love your mother you'd have cut all ties years ago over this.'

'You're saying we only argue with the people we love?' He quirked an eyebrow at her, momentarily pushed out of his personal misery. She laughed, the sound only slightly forced., and he gave her a brief hug - just as Harlock exited the infirmary with Tochiro at his side.

'Any particular reason you're cuddling my wife?' Harlock asked. Mamoru released Maya deliberately slowly and shrugged. 'Any particular reason you're not?' She thumped him on the arm as she slipped away and he smiled indulgently as his brother wrapped his arm possessively around her waist.

Tochiro tugged on Harlock's sleeve. 'Oh come _on…_!' He grinned at Maya, and as ever it was impossible not to respond in kind. 'Seems there's no rest for the talented - I gather I'm needed to help create a bit more capacity in the ship's life support?'

Mamoru nodded. 'If you can.'

Tochiro's cheery grin widened even further. He rubbed his hands together and chortled. 'Be nice to do something constructive whilst I'm not under fire for a change. Could use some help though - anyone seen that kid they brought in with me?'

'Jan's quarters,' Maya informed him. He nodded his thanks and trotted off down the corridor, leaving her alone with the two brothers. The awkward silence he left in his wake was smothering, almost as restrictive as Harlock's strong arm around her waist. She could extricate herself from the latter, and did so, muttering a thin excuse about needing to recalibrate the communications array. But that sense that her lungs were already full and she was suffocating in a surfeit of air… that refused to pass.

Both men watched her walk away, neither of them looking at the other. Eventually Harlock broke the silence. 'Aniki…' he didn't look at his brother.

'We'll be on our way soon enough,' Mamoru said quietly. 'None of this was your fault.'

'Never said it was,' Harlock replied, his tone so gentle anyone not knowing him could be forgiven for thinking there was little to no emotion in those words.

'I can practically hear you thinking it,' Mamoru replied. 'She'd have been sent anyway. And with far less knowledge of what she was up against without you and Tochiro. And until we get there, nothing's certain.'

'Schrodinger's Admiral…' Harlock muttered. He did risk a look at his brother then, sideways, under long lashed lids. And flinched inwardly at the sight of his brother's profile, that mask of calm over worry and guilt, and perhaps the tiniest shred of hope.

That last grieved him more than anything. He'd seen the devastation the plasma accelerator could unleash first hand. If anything of the Second Fleet survived, it would be pure dumb luck.

'Nothing's certain,' he repeated, and placed his hand on his brother's shoulder, feeling the tension in the muscle.

He wished he believed it.

* * *

 _Dis_

From the observation platform on the bridge of the transport _Hellsparrow_ , Victor Harken stared at the planet below, a scowl on his face. Where the base had been, a boiling cloud of dust, pumice, and gases now boiled over a vast area of the continent. The infrared image intensifiers picked out the pyroclastic flow that had inundated the base six hours previously, obliterating it and the caldera holding the spaceport, and the cooler, slower trickle of the lava flows still pouring out of the magma chamber. Cooler being somewhat subjective.

The medics had fixed his injuries, but they still smarted. Not however as much as the galling experience of having Hechi expound at length on his failings.

'Nevich dead, the entire mining operation here set back decades at best, and to top it all you manage to lose the Oyama brat?'

He met the black-on-black eyes of the Chief Scientist, and did his best to withhold the sneer that wanted to plaster itself across his own perfect features at the sight of the grotesque creature in front of him. Long greasy black hair fell down his back, receded at the sides creating a deep widow's peak even more pronounced than Danga's. His once slim, tall body was now twisted and frail, the result of an accident several years ago. Vid files from his youth did at least back up the rumours that he had once been an attractive man. The beauty standing next to him certainly backed that up - the tall girl at his side was one of his daughters. Even so, he always found it hard to suppress a shudder at the thought of the vile hunchback actually having sex.

'We were able to salvage some of the equipment at least,' Danga added, from behind Victor. Victor closed his eyes and counted to five.

'Somehow, Danga, I don't think Harken thinks your support is doing him any favours,' Hechi replied dryly, before cackling at his own joke. 'I suggest the pair of you make yourselves scarce until we reach Shaitan. The Chancellor will want a word with both of you. Privately.' He waved a hand dismissively. 'Get off my bridge.'

Victor clicked his heels together and snapped off a stiff armed salute, before turning on his heel and marching off, Danga on his heels. Once the door had irised shut behind them, the girl turned to her father. 'Why don't we just space the pair of them and save the Chancellor the bother?'

Hechi patted her hand. 'Because I'd not deprive him of the fun - or my own in watching Harken squirm for a few weeks longer. Under his uniform that annoying little prick is one of the mercantile elite, not military or science. They think they're so much better than the rest of us, but mostly, they're parasites, hiding behind the shield of the military and feeding on the brilliance of the scientific caste.' He sneered, the expression twisting his face into an even less appealing leer. 'Frieza my dear, you need to learn to anticipate your pleasures. Instant gratification is for the more plebian minds.'

'Yes father.'

'The Deathshadow will most likely have set sail for El-Alamein, hoping to intercept the Second Fleet before it engages with our new toy.' He cackled again, heedless of a thin trickle of drool that escaped his twisted mouth. 'Too bad they're already too late. I'd love to see their faces when they get there. Just before we cut them into pieces.'

'Wouldn't it have been better to take the ship for study?' Frieza pushed her long hair back from her face and stared at the screen with a small frown marring her brow. 'If the rumours of Arcadia Engineering using Dark Matter are true…'

Hechi raised a hand to shush her, his fingers as gnarled and twisted as the rest of him. 'With the heirs to all shareholders dead, the company will be in the hands of the children, all of whom are years away from their majority. I think we won't meet with much resistance getting control away from one old man and a couple of women.'

'But… father - isn't Justinian Rosenbach one of their guardians?'

Hechi shrugged. 'What can he do? He's constantly tied up chasing his pacifistic ideals around the galaxy, trying to put the genii back in the bottle.' He smiled and the effect was even more disturbing than his leering disdain. 'We'll set a course for El-Alamein, and mop up the wreckage. A rescue that arrived too late. Too bad. So sad.'

Frieza smiled fondly at her father. 'You're right, father. Savouring it is more entertaining…'

He patted her hand again. 'Your papa usually is, my dear. Now - a kiss before we get to work?'

Laughing, she gave him a peck on the cheek, then strode to her position, calling out orders as she walked.

Hechi sighed fondly then turned his attention back to the roiling hell that had once been a surprisingly profitable venture. 'The only trouble is, death by plasma accelerator is far too quick for you: Okita, Oyama, Harlock…' he muttered. 'Enjoy the heroics. Soon enough you'll realise they never, ever leave any meaningful, lasting legacy…' He smiled again as another thought struck him. 'And thank you for all your hard work… I'm going to enjoy finding creative uses for your tame Nibelung filth and their technology…'

He was still sniggering to himself as the ship entered IN-SKIP.

* * *

 **El Alamein**

Empty space is never truly empty. The _Deathshadow_ emerged from IN-Space - had there been an observer to see it - as though it were being printed, line by line, against the backdrop of eternity.

'Nothing on the short range scan!' Montoya called out. 'No mass, no EM…'

'Scan for smaller traces,' Harlock whispered into his ear, having to bend almost double to do so. He shot a worried glance over his shoulder towards the captain's chair, where Mamoru sat, ramrod-straight, his piratical flightsuit somehow fitting amongst the casual dress code on board the ship. Inside his stiff Fleet blues, he shifted uncomfortably.

'No communications on any channel,' Maya added from her station. 'Static across the board…'

'Shields up,' Mamoru ordered. 'I don't want us holed by debris.'

'If there is any…' Tochiro muttered, standing by Harlock's side, his arms folded.

'Montoya - give me a heading towards the _Shinano's_ last location,' Mamoru continued. 'Maya - keep scanning on all frequencies, maximum spread. Tochiro's worked on the sensitivity - if there's anything out there, we'll find it.'

A black shadow passed over the viewscreen, as though the ship had just passed through a cloud. 'What the fu-' Con Jones rubbed his eyes.

'Relax,' Tochiro told him. 'I tweaked the hydrogen scoops - a trick I learned from Mimay. There's a small Nibelung engine on board - I configured it to pick up and spew out a bit of dark matter to act as a shield. Those plasma accelerators are photonic, right? So I figured the dark would help absorb it. _If_ anyone starts shooting at us.'

'If?' Con snorted. 'When.'

'Chill, Jonesy. It also acts as a shield against standard EM sensors. We're difficult to spot with that stuff infused into the hull. This little baby is fast, hard to hit and hard to spot.' He patted the hull fondly. 'She's got some tricks up her sleeve, has this old girl.'

'Some of which I could have done with knowing about before I shipped out in her,' Mamoru told him. 'Ever heard of a manual?' He stood up and walked to the front of the bridge. 'All ahead slow.'

'All ahead slow, aye,' Montoya replied. The ever present engine hum intensified briefly, settling down to a low pitched murmur as the ship cut through the darkness.

* * *

Empty space is never truly empty. Less than fifteen minutes after leaving the calm of IN-Space, the ships sensors started to pick up the scattered traces of carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, tectite and even fainter traces of rare earths not found free-floating in the void.

'No single mass over a few kilograms,' Con advised his captain, his normally smiling mouth fixed into a grim line. 'Composition of most of them is an amalgam, metamorphosed into a metallic slag with organic components…'

Mamoru stared at the viewscreen, even though at its current resolution nothing as small as the detected fragments could be seen.

'Maya?' He had to ask, even knowing the answer. He felt his brother's shoulder brush against his, as Harlock moved to stand beside him.

'Nothing. I'm getting the carrier signal for the hypergates, about 30 AUs from our position. Other than that, just dead air.'

'So…' Mamoru bowed his head.

'I'm getting several scattered readings from multiple sources,' Con added. 'From the data Tochiro programmed into the databanks about the composition of those gates, it looks as though they took out several of them. The network's in pieces. That has to be good news, right?'

'They can re-route the plasma stream through any remaining gates,' Tochiro pointed out. 'Taking out the gates…'

'Doesn't shut the weapon down,' Mamoru finished for him. He turned on his heel, strode back to his chair and sat down heavily. 'Fuck that. Montoya - change of course. Head for that gas giant. All hands - prepare for IN-SKIP. All hands to their battlestations. Main battery cleared and ready for firing.'

'Aye sir. Course laid in.'

Tochiro tugged on Harlock's sleeve to get his attention. 'Is this a good idea?' he asked quietly, unheard over the clamour of the call to arms.

Harlock shrugged. 'It's what I'd do,' he replied evenly, not looking back at his brother.

Tochiro took his glasses off, gave them a cursory rub on his sleeve and pushed them back into place, fiddling with the left hand wire frame which he almost stuck into his ear. 'Yeah. That's kind of what worries me…' he muttered under his breath.

The _Deathshadow_ slid smoothly into sub-space and vanished from the real universe.

Outside, where the ship had been, a few wisps of black smoke whirled like dust devils in the faint solar winds from the distant sun, blacker on black, before they dissipated like mist in the early morning over the fields and hills of Heiligenstadt.


	20. Chapter 20

Manfred Rosenbach had been feeling like something of a spare part since being stranded on board the _Deathshadow_. Not a spacer, with experience that could be utilised on the somewhat undermanned ship. Not even a medic who could help with the wounded currently taking up his cabin.

Nobody needs a diplomat when the damage has already gone too far.

'It's not that I disagree with what they're going to do,' he told his sister. 'It's just that I don't want to see them pay the price for it once we get back to Earth.'

She sighed heavily and stared at her eldest brother fondly. 'Is there anything that can be done to protect them?' she asked eventually.

'If Zone and Doppler want to make an issue of it, probably not. But your big brother here did have a decent career in interstellar law before all this broke loose. If this were peacetime, I'd say they're screwed. As it is, there are ways to tie things up in committees long enough for the next catastrophe to hit.'

'That's hardly reassuring,' Maya pointed out somewhat tartly.

Manfred's response was rather more grim. 'Father and I have some pull. Your boys might just have to suck up calling in a few favours for once in their stubborn lives.'

She snorted. 'They're not _both_ mine… and Mamoru's not stubborn…'

Manfred tapped her forehead, just between the eyes. 'Sis - that pair are cut from the same cloth. It's just one's better at hiding it than the other is.' He grinned. 'But I notice you don't leap to Harlock's defence…'

She smacked his finger away and pouted. 'What's the point? He positively revels in being an arse.'

Manfred smirked. 'And that, baby sis, is the difference between them on the nail.' He stood up and stretched. 'I need to do something constructive.'

'Such as?'

He paused in front of the door to her quarters. 'No bloody idea.' He smiled at her nervous frown. 'C'mon sis. Grab a few minutes while you can. The moment this ship reaches that gas giant, all bets are off.'

He didn't have to wander far before "constructive" found him. The door to the war room was open, and a tall figure in the dark blue uniform of a fleet lieutenant stood staring out of one of the observation ports, hands behind his ramrod straight back. In profile his hawkish nose gave him a severe, aristocratic look, the whole made even more stark by the total lack of any hair on his hair or face.

'Lieutenant?'

Khalsa turned slightly, his mouth quirking slightly at the corners in a vain attempt at a welcoming smile. 'Ambassador Rosenbach.'

Manfred snorted, walked into the room and perched on the edge of the desk that took up most of it. 'Manfred, please. It's not as if I'm here officially.'

'Mopping up after your sister's wayward spouse?' Without the sheltering cover of his beard and moustache, the sardonic twist of his full lips was marked. The depilation process used to prep him for one of Doppler's masks had been cruelly efficient - although there was a faint trace of black stubble growing back on his bare scalp and around his chin.

Seeing the direction of Manfred's gaze, Khalsa rubbed his head ruefully. 'Not the worst indignity I was subjected to, and thankfully it's all growing back.' He pulled a face. 'Itching like fuck in other places…'

Manfred had to bite back a laugh. 'Way too much information.'

Khalsa did laugh. 'Put it down to the company I keep.' He joined Manfred on the desk, perching next to him companionably. 'I owe you my life as well, it seems.' At Manfred's puzzled frown he smiled, warmly this time. 'You didn't stop looking, and you found our weapons and gear from the _Yukikaze_. Without that, Mamoru would likely have arrived too late.'

'Too late for Kavanagh,' Manfred replied. 'For that, I'm sorry. I remember him from the wedding. Rough around the edges, but a good man.'

Khalsa stared out of the viewport. 'A good friend for a long time. Harlock picked us out of the long list of disposable fuck-ups the Fleet sent Arcadia Engineering for their test programme. We both thought he was a pissant little screw-up to start with - an entitled pretty boy who only got his position due to nepotism. First test flight he proved us wrong, and if he proved to be a batshit insane bastard with serious impulse control issues, you could at least rely on him getting you _out_ of any trouble he got you _into_.'

'Until now…'

'Until, as you say, now. Which wasn't his fault. He asked us to leave - take the lifepods - if we weren't prepared to run interference to help the fleet escape that _brahmastra_. Not a man or woman on the ship took him up on it. If he runs headfirst into trouble, he makes damn sure he's got people around him who'll stick with him.'

'It always seems odd to me that a man with the social skills of a plank, who hates being in charge and giving orders, manages to find people who'll follow him into hell,' Manfred mused.

Khalsa laughed again, his voice deep and throaty. 'Ah. Well, it helps to find men who don't particularly like being _given_ orders…' He rubbed the back of his neck and head, and winced as his fingers encountered the dressing covering two small mask implant sheaths on the back of his skull. 'He's wild, and crazy, in his quiet way. But he's our kind of crazy. Fleet's like a strait-jacket some of us don because it's either the only way to protect those we love, or it's the only outlet we've got for the shit that would otherwise get us put behind bars. If _he_ ever figures out a way to do all that on his own terms, I don't think he'll keep that uniform on a moment longer than he has to.' He breathed in deeply. Let it out slowly. 'I might just be right behind him heading for the door.'

Manfred frowned. 'There have to be rules,' he pointed out. 'And organisations to enforce them. Otherwise, what are we? One step away from chaos and anarchy?'

'So far those rules haven't stopped this Homecoming Movement,' Khalsa said sourly. 'They don't stop men like Doppler, Hechi and Zone who play the system to their own benefit because your rules can be sidestepped - or used against you - by men with either the will or the money to do so with impunity. In the end you might have to break those rules and your institutions if you want to survive.'

'Then what will we be?' Manfred stood up and stared out into the darkness. 'Without the rule of law, of civilisation, what are we?'

He could see Khalsa reflected in the window, shrug. 'We'll be free,' he said eventually. 'Whether or not we'll figure out how to live like that is another matter entirely.'

'Now that,' Manfred said with a harsh laugh, 'Sounds like something my brother in law would say.'

Khalsa's sardonic, twisted smile made a reappearance. 'Where,' he drawled, 'do you think I heard it first?' He stood up and wavered slightly, bracing himself with one palm flat on the desk. 'Damn. Still think the room's spinning. Those bastards totally fucked with my balance.'

Manfred offered his arm. 'Here. If you're not too proud to accept a shoulder to lean on?' He let the taller man settle himself into position, leaning on him with one arm over his shoulders. 'What quarters did they give you?'

'None,' Khalsa replied dryly. 'I skipped out of medical whilst no-one was looking. Another five minutes sitting bare-assed on a mattress thinner than my finger staring at white walls and I might have started hitting things.'

Manfred laughed with genuine amusement. 'Good god, no wonder you get on so well with Harlock.'

A brilliant flash of light passed close to the ship, lighting up the room with a flare so bright both men had to blink away the afterimage. 'Looks as though we're straight back into the fire…' Manfred whispered.

' _Brahmastra_ …' Khalsa said again, softly. 'A terrible aspect indeed…' he shivered. 'My mother was hindu by upbringing, my father sikh. She used to read from the _Mahabharata_ to me when I was a boy. Tales of gods and heroes, and terrible weapons capable of destroying worlds. We live in a time of deadly myths, Manfred. Terrible, deadly myths…' He took a deep breath. 'Take me to the bridge, if you'd be so kind. I need to see this through.'

He let Manfred lead him from the room, neither of them looking back as another flash tore apart the eternal night outside the ship.

* * *

 _Deathshadow Zero: elsewhere…_

They were still in IN space when Harlock caught up with Mamoru as he exited the head nearest the bridge. 'Aniki…'

'I'm fine. You can stop worrying,' Mamoru told him, not breaking stride as he strode back to the bridge.

'I didn't say anything…' Harlock fell into step beside him, shortening his stride to allow his brother to keep up.

'You didn't have to.'

Harlock laid a hand on his sleeve, and gripped his arm firmly, to bring him to a halt. 'It's me who's usually the one who bottles shit up. Quite honestly, watching you stiff-upper-lip this is scaring me.'

Mamoru stopped in the middle of the corridor and sighed. 'I can't make time for it right now, Phantom. It's not just my mother - I knew a lot of her people. I used to hang out with her bridge crew when she was in-system. These were friends and colleagues for years. Hell - our children used to play together. And just like that…' he snapped his fingers under his brother's nose, 'they're gone. Not even in a clean fight, if there's such a thing. If you think this is calm, you're deluded. I'm not calm, I'm so fucking furious that the next entitled cunt who shows his face and starts throwing his weight around is going to take a one-way ticket to hell, courtesy of my ship's cannon. This isn't calm, this is just the eye of the storm.'

'Maybe the _Shinano…'_

'I appreciate the attempt at optimism, but we all know there's nothing left. That plasma accelerator vapourised most of the vessel. There's nothing left of any of the ships who didn't make the jump. You saw the condition of the _Orochi_.' He took a deep breath and stood tall, brushing his hair out of his face. 'No trace either of the flight recorders - which would have been jettisoned as per protocol. This was an area-effect weapon of almost unimaginable power. It left nothing but shreds behind of a dozen ships. I'll grieve once I've dealt with it. Not before. I can't afford to indulge myself yet.'

'It's not supposed to be you,' Harlock said softly. 'It shouldn't be you out here.'

'Are you trying to tell me I can't handle this?'

'I'm trying to tell you that you shouldn't have had to.'

Mamoru leaned against the wall and folded his arms. With his hair flopping down over his left eye, he looked a lot younger than his years, and bone weary with it. 'It shouldn't be you either. None of this is on you. You're one captain, in charge of one ship - and not even regular fleet at that. Thanks to you Sanada's ships escaped the first attack, but the admiralty was always going to send someone to investigate, and this… this was inevitable. My mother did her job, just as she's always done, and because of it, I've got a chance to take this weapon out. It's not a chance I plan on wasting.' He smiled sadly. 'She wouldn't want me to.'

Harlock snorted. 'And you not even with a commission… you do realise we take this thing out, that's pretty much an act of piracy?' He jabbed a finger at the skull and crossbones emblazoned across his brother's flightsuit. 'I didn't expect you to take _this_ quite so much to heart…'

'This isn't the kind of weapon you want in anyone's hands,' Mamoru replied. 'It's a planet killer, and comes under the category of banned research.'

'Sanada might think that holds,' Harlock said frostily. 'But he's in a minority. Do yourself a favour - document everything, and make sure your presentation is as tight as you can make it.'

'You think I haven't already done that?'

'I think Sanada had no fucking right to ask you to do this, and as always you put protecting everyone else over your own hide.'

'You think I'm doing this because Shiro asked me to?' Mamoru laughed harshly. 'You don't know me that well if you think I'd leave Miranda and the girls to fetch and carry for the Fleet. I came here for you, and if they'd tried to block me leaving the system, I'd have fought my way through the entire Pluto defence line if I'd had to, to get to you. Shiro's request was a bonus, but I didn't _ask_ for anyone's permission, I don't _need_ anyone's permission and sure as fuck I don't give a _shit_ about anyone's permission. There's a clear and present threat and I intend to neutralise it. Now is there anyone else who's of the opinion I can't think for myself and can't make a decision without checking back to an organisation I don't even _fucking answer to_?'

He was shouting by the time he got to the last sentence, and several heads peeking out from behind the door to the bridge were pulled back sharply as he turned to glare at them. Further down the corridor both Manfred and Maya found a reason to turn around and head in the opposite direction as though they'd had no intention of walking anywhere else. Mamoru stormed onto the bridge and took his seat without a word, leaving Harlock to saunter in as nonchalantly as he could and take his seat at the weapons console next to Jan.

Komarova leaned down and whispered 'What the fuck did you say to set _him_ off like that?'

'Why does everyone assume that was my fault?' he hissed at her.

'Probably because you tend to have that effect on anyone who's ever spent five minutes in your company? Your beautiful wife apparently only puts up with your shit because you wield your cock like a god on the rare occasions you take any leave...'

He didn't have time to answer with something suitably pithy because the ship shuddered as it came out of IN-SKIP, just as Maya scuttled onto the bridge to take up her station, with a furtive WTF look in his direction. He glared at her and she flushed, took her seat with a determined bounce and proceeded to ignore him.

Then the proximity alarm went off.

'On screen!' Mamoru ordered brusquely. All eyes were trained on the main viewer, where three ships were bearing down on the Deathshadow's position. 'Shields up!'

' _Corvid_ class destroyers,' Con called out. 'Zone Industry's latest cut-price beaters. I'm amazed they can accelerate without shaking themselves to pieces.'

'I had to test fly one two years ago,' Harlock said. 'Not sure he'll ever forgive me for the write up we sent back to procurement…' He sniggered nastily.

'That was you?' Con laughed. 'Man… that was required reading - I almost wet myself reading the bit about the handling in high-g turns... '

'Pretty much my problem when trying to get back to port alive in it,' Harlock drawled. 'Though for a different reason…'

'Handles like a blind, obese, arthritic, diarrhetic camel attempting to avoid shitting itself whilst trying to insert its clap-ridden cock into its own arsehole?' Jan sighed. 'I think that made its way through every department in the company. Pure poetry…' A ripple of laughter made its way around the bridge, lifting the tension in the atmosphere.

'Sounds like Tochiro helped you with your homework to me,' Mamoru murmured, earning him a black look from his brother. 'Well they're in my space, people. Get them out of my way,' Mamoru ordered, unable to bite back a grin. Even his currently sour mood couldn't survive his brother's unique approach to his job.

'Run straight at 'em,' Harlock advised. 'They're bunched together in a typical Academy formation, and they'll scatter and break before you do. When they peel off at high speed on a tight turn, they'll try to bring weapons to bear like they've been taught. When they do, they'll be straining the hull plates to breaking point. A couple of good hits just as they power up to fire…'

'Seriously?' Mamoru raised an eyebrow.

'Hand on heart. One glancing blow and they'll shake themselves to bits.'

Three shots went wide over the starboard bow, by a considerable margin. 'Blind?' Mamoru said with a slow smirk spreading over his face.

'With those targeting systems, they'd be lucky to hit a space dock if they were parked inside it.'

'Komarova?'

'Sir.'

'You heard the man. All ahead full.'

'Aye sir.'

The Deathshadow powered forward, her speed startling the enemy ships who visibly struggled to respond in time to her unprecedented acceleration. And true to Harlock's prediction, they peeled off to re-target the Deathshadow in a three-pronged attack. One ship over-steered and managed to bounce off one of its fellows, taking them both down.

'For real?' Con laughed. 'How much room does he bloody need for fuck's sake? He's in _space…'_

'Told them,' Harlock said smugly. 'I've handled some crap in my time, but you'd think they were moving through tar, not vacuum. Hand to god - you'd expect the blueprints to be written in wax crayon…'

The third ship, straining to come about, tried and failed to get a lock on, its plasma beam passing harmlessly over the stern of the Deathshadow, before her particle cannon introduced themselves with extreme prejudice, leaving a trail of wreckage in their wake.

'No taking your eyes of the game,' Mamoru warned. 'Zone has a habit of over-engineering his creations. The man's a cost-cutting son of a bitch with a safety record that should have gotten his company shut down years ago, but he'd put weapons on a transport trolley.'

'Intercepting a coded signal on a short-range frequency.' Maya tapped her console and frowned. 'It's not a cipher in the system…'

Con waved his hand in the air. 'Me miss! Me!'

'Oh grow up…' she muttered at him. He grinned. 'Hey - leave it to the experts, gorgeous. You track 'em, I'll crack 'em.'

'Location?' Mamoru asked.

'Between a point in orbit around the gas giant and somewhere about 2 AUs off our current position.'

'Anything there?'

Con tapped away at his station whilst the software worked on the message. 'Time radar trace shows a large mass, and elemental traces similar to those rings.'

'Similar,' Harlock said quietly. 'But not identical?'

'Probably the first in line,' Tochiro added from the doorway. He scampered over to Harlock's side. 'There should be a small station close by to control the initial flow from the planet to the ring. Most likely manned.'

'Got it!' Con beamed triumphantly. 'They're tracking us. Orders to triangulate and obliterate.'

'They'll have to find us first,' Tochiro smirked and rubbed his nose with the back of his hand. 'The ship's well shielded - at least until we open fire… that kind of gives us away.'

'Dark matter?' Mamoru looked thoughtful. 'Just how invisible are we?'

'You have an idea?' Harlock asked him.

'I just might… Tochiro - is there a way to give their sensors a false position?'

Tochiro frowned. 'Not easy… I mean, if they're using any kind of gravitic sensor then you can't fake mass…' He grinned. 'Or maybe…' He scuttled over to Maya's station. ''Scuse me, Maya. I need to rummage around under there…' She stood up and let him vanish, wriggling under the cramped console as only he could. 'Why comms?' she asked his backside.

'Need the carrier signal… it's all tied in to a system we were trialing… Ah!' He backed out awkwardly, and hit his head on the underside when he tried to stand up too soon. Maya helped him to his feet making sympathetic noises. 'We can use the communications array tied in to the hologramme projector we use for optical camouflage, and I can use the dark matter to give the illusion of mass in a designated area.'

'Except we'll need to be physically there long enough to leave a trace…' Mamoru looked at his brother. 'Tricky timing…' He stood up. 'Take the helm, little brother.'

'What?' Komarova's shock was echoed in several faces on the bridge.

'Are you crazy, captain?' Con Jones watched, twisted in his seat as Harlock tookthe captain's chair vacated by Mamoru, who stood at the side of the chair, arms folded. Tochiro grinned at the pair and took Harlock's vacated seat at the weapons station.

'Tochiro?' Harlock ignored the crew's reaction and just exchanged a nod with his brother.

'Course should be on your display, my friend. Maya - keep sweeping that comm channel. Con - start jamming that signal. Don't let them get a clear lock. This is gonna take some fancy footwork. We want them to see us, and get those weapons pointed at where we want them…'

'Which is somewhere in the upper atmosphere of a gas giant,' Harlock added quietly. 'So the ride's going to get a little bumpy.'

'You're planning on painting a bloody great target on us and then try and dance out of the way and hope they take out their own facility?' Komarova glared at Mamoru. 'You're even dafter than the pup there, Okita.'

'Can you think of anyone better at ramming this down their throat?' Mamoru replied bluntly. 'As has often been pointed out, I'm the sensible one. I don't do batshit insane. And in addition to mad reflexes and piloting skills, this _definitely_ calls for batshit insane.'

'My middle name,' Harlock added dryly.

'I thought that was Klaus?' Con smirked. 'Or was it Sebastian? Or Maria? I lose track…'

'You'll lose something else in a minute…' Harlock growled at him, almost snarling the words.

'Enough.' Mamoru didn't raise his voice, the tone alone enough to shut the bickering down. 'Jones - you'll take my brother's orders as though they were mine.'

'Yeah…' Maya heard Con mutter, 'But there are some orders _you_ wouldn't give…'

'Which is why,' she leaned towards him so she could whisper the response, 'he's handed over command.'

'It's fucking suicidal…' Con grumbled under his breath. 'They're _both_ totally bonkers…'

'Took you this long to work it out?'

He gave her a sharp glance and then barked out a laugh. 'You ain't even surprised, are you?'

'I've lived in the same house as the pair of them for years,' she told him. 'Trust Harlock,' she added. 'He's almost as good as he thinks he is.'

'He also has sharp ears,' he husband said acidly from his seat. 'And is sitting right behind you.'

'Well I'd hardly be doing my job as comms officer if I couldn't make sure I had the captain's ear, now would I?' She pulled a face as her console started to beep at her, red lights flashing like a ballroom on a Saturday night. 'Erm… Tochiro - should it be doing this?'

'Ah. It'll take a bit more overload,' he told her cheerily. 'Don't worry too much.'

'How much is too much?' Komarova muttered.

'Just follow the heading,' Harlock told her.

In the captain's chair he sat back and gripped the arms. Times like these, he wished he had something to hold onto. Computerised navigation was all very well, but he needed something tactile. Something to grab hold of - and even if it only gave the illusion of doing something constructive, it'd be a damn sight better than sitting on his arse and tapping instructions into a console or shouting them out, the latter of which he hated with a passion. He shot a glance sideways, out of the corner of his right eye, to where Mamoru stood, arms folded.

'Stop fidgeting,' Mamoru advised under his breath.

'I just keep feeling I need something to actually _do_ instead of sitting on my arse. What we need,' he said quietly, so that only Mamoru could hear, 'Is one of those bloody great wheels they used to use back in the old days. You know the ones? On those old sailing ships? I think they used them on dirigibles as well…'

'You want to put a ship's wheel on a _spaceship_?' Mamoru snorted, grateful that the rest of the bridge crew were otherwise occupied. 'How's _that_ supposed to work? How would you make it work in three dimensions?'

'Fucked if I know - that's why I have Tochiro…' He smirked. 'Would look so fucking cool though, wouldn't it?' He waited, most of his attention on the helm controls under his fingertips.

Mamoru didn't disappoint. After a lengthy pause there was a tiny, very quiet snigger. 'Hell yes…'

Harlock grinned, the expression not at all reassuring to any onlookers. 'Thirty degrees port, fixty-six-point-oh-seven declension. All ahead full!'

Between the curved horns of her bow, a small dark cloud began to grow as the Deathshadow sprang into action, flowing back over the hull to cover the ship as she sped towards the hypergate nearest the gas giant filling the main viewscreen.

* * *

Outside the ship the manoeuvres were considerably more entertaining to any observer than the commands relayed via either the captain's console or the helm would have led anyone to believe. On board the control station for the test rig of the plasma accelerator, techs struggled to keep pace with the Deathshadow's speed and the odd way that their sensors just slid off her like water from a duck's back.

'I can't get a lock on!' one called out desperately to his overseer. 'She's faster than most fighters, moves like an eel and there's something odd about the way the sensors keep sliding away from her. By the time the beam reaches her, she's long gone - or was never there to start with.'

'Split the beam,' the overseer ordered, his voice mechanically distorted by the metal mask over his face. 'She might evade one, let's see how she fares against three.'

'Give me a target and I'll happily oblige,' the tech replied waspishly. 'But I've got to get a lock on first.'

'Wide dispersal,' another masked man ordered. 'Less damage, but over a wider area more chance she'll run into it. Cripple her, then see how fast she can run.'

'Do it,' the first nodded. 'Spread pattern, use three rings and triangulate. She can't be everywhere at once…'

'Bet?' the tech muttered under his breath. 'Look at her move - the pilot's either a genius or a madman, the way he's flying her. You wouldn't put a fighter into those turns, but she just dances out of the way…'

Even in real time the satellite's sensors and camera could barely capture the small battleship's moves as she enticed the hypergate weapon with the grace of a striptease dancer - a glimpse of her curved, horned prow here… her angular stern wiggling suggestively as she accelerated away from yet another sweeping, scything slice of death-in-light that tried to cut through her leaping form.

'A madman…' one of the techs breathed. 'But what madness!'

'It's an old Admiral class destroyer,' one of his neighbours along the control desk muttered. 'She should have been toast on the first pass.'

A wave of light bathed the spot where the Deathshadow had been only moments before, and her own weapons lanced out and sliced a spinning ring in two before it could spit fire in its turn.

'Damn it, it's like she's in two or more places at once!'

Another, to the original speaker's left, frowned. 'You might want to rethink chasing her like that… she's getting real close to the outer atmosphere. Miss with one of those beams…'

'Then don't miss,' said one of the masked overseers. 'You know the penalty for failure.'

'We'll be dead,' the first tech murmured. 'What else could you do to us?'

'Target has taken out another ring!'

'Re-route. Twenty degree declension off the ecliptic, ring twenty-seven,' an overseer called out. 'Wide burst, all rings. She's diving right between them…'

'I have a lock - mass detected. Confirmed…'

'Fire!'

The wave-front of a sea of fire as hot as a sun converged on the spot where their sensors told them the Deathshadow would be - and washed into each other, expanding in chaotic ripples like waves in a pool reflecting off each other.

'IN-SKIP! She went IN-SKIP!'

'Impossible!' the overseer leaned over the guardrail of his platform overlooking the control room. 'Not in atmosphere…'

'Cease fire!'

'Too late! Brace for impact!'

Blast shields barely slammed down in time, as a blinding flash scorched the control room in the brief seconds before they shut. Those in the orbiting satellite would have been permanently blinded by the explosion from the atmosphere of the gas giant below them, as their own plasma beams - focussed, condensed and magnified, accelerated to speeds approaching a substantial fraction of light, slammed into the refinery that produced the raw materials. Would have been, if the feedback hadn't fired the hypergate controls that kept the beams on course as they accelerated in hyperspace. With their access back into standard space-time blocked, the energy that didn't belong in sub-space had to go somewhere, and it did.

Multiple bursts of light lit up the void around the gas giant, which itself erupted into a fireball.

* * *

On board the Deathshadow, sitting safely out of range, the main viewer slowly coming back on line as its blast shield was raised, whoops and hollers rang around the bridge of the Deathshadow.

'We did it!' Jan jumped up and punched the air, before Komarova's restraining hand slammed him back into his seat firmly.

'Holy shit… I think I need the brown trousers…' Con Jones clung to his console's edge with white fingers.

'Not over yet…' Tochiro said, having to shout to make himself heard. 'Shit! Harlock - punch it! Now!'

Used to his friend's tone, the alarm in his voice was enough to make Harlock reach for the emergency IN-SKIP command almost as soon as he'd finished talking.

The Deathshadow phased out of normal space microseconds ahead of the fireball that expanded, as the gas giant exploded.

She reappeared outside the gravity well of El Alamein's star, and all eyes watched in awe as she briefly became a twin.

'Oh my…' Khalsa said admiringly from behind Harlock's left shoulder. 'Captain… you've kind of outdone yourself this time…'

'Technically, they blew up their own planet,' Harlock replied defensively.

Manfred whistled. 'An entire planet, Harlock? That's a first even for your record…'

'Are we counting that mega-volcano on Dis?' Con asked cheekily. Both Tochiro and Harlock glared at him.

'Well if the idiot who designed it had built the proper safeguards into his systems,' Tochiro interjected defensively, ' _that_ shouldn't happen.'

'And yet,' Manfred drawled, 'the pair of you are very familiar with Zone's work, aren't you?'

Tochiro and Harlock exchanged innocent looks and both shrugged.

Mamoru laughed. 'Leave it, Manfred. I'll take the win, however they got it.' He retook his chair after Harlock stood up and stretched. 'Full systems check - make sure we've not taken too much damage. I'm pretty sure I heard something creak in one of those turns…'

Komarova frowned as she ran a weather eye over the automated damage reports. 'Something did… we should be leaking like a sieve in several places.'

Tochiro coughed, his hand over his mouth to hide a smile.

'Then why aren't we?' Mamoru had a feeling he was going to regret asking the question.

'Dark matter,' I'm guessing, Jan opined. He ducked a half-hearted thump from Tochiro. 'What? You thought I wouldn't work it out, Oyama-san? You had me looking into that infused skin months ago.'

' _Infused_?' Mamoru turned his attention to the short engineer.

'Self-healing,' Tochiro explained, giving Jan the stinkeye for stealing his thunder. 'Nice side effect of the dark matter collectors. Wasn't sure how it would work under full battle conditions, but without it you just couldn't make the kind of turns Harlock was…' he trailed off as all eyes turned to Harlock, who was doing his best to look knowledgeable and unruffled.

'You did know that, right?' Mamoru asked his brother quietly.

'Of course I did. What do you take me for?' He didn't meet his brother's eyes, and moved to stand next to Tochiro. Only Maya saw the aggrieved look Tochiro gave him at the thump he got on his arm, and the "arsehole" that her husband mouthed at his best friend. It probably wouldn't be a good idea, she thought, to let the rest of them know the pair had been winging it. She hid her hands on her lap until her fingers stopped trembling. From the heavy sigh she heard from the captain's chair, at least one other person was fully aware that they'd just danced on the knife edge.

'I want a complete report from all areas, including casualties,' Mamoru continued calmly, as though nothing had happened. 'Prepare a jump to Earth via Herise - we need to offload the colonial evacuees somewhere safe. As soon as we're good to go, I want us out of here.'

'Aye aye, sir.' Even the usually unflappable Komarova sounded wobbly.

Maya tensed slightly then relaxed as Harlock arms slid around her waist, and he laid his chin on the top of her head. 'You're safe,' he whispered, leaning as close to her as he could with a combat chair in the way. Only his long arms could have gotten as far around her as they did, enough to deliver a reassuring squeeze that almost took her breath away. 'I wouldn't have put you in danger if I could have avoided it.'

'I know.' He was already releasing her, unwilling to show too much of the emotion she knew he had to be holding in, in front of so many. 'I love you,' she whispered before he was out of earshot.

He gave her right breast a squeeze before he released her. 'I know.' His breath caressed her earlobe as he spoke, and he was gone, already turning his attention to aiding with the torrent of information flooding in from various parts of the ship.

Long before the brief candle in the void that was El Alamein's gas giant had guttered and gone out, consuming its atmosphere in less than a handful of hours, the ship was gone.


	21. Epilogue

_With thanks (as always!) to Pollywantsa for help, comments, advice and just being so gosh-darned enthusiastic and keeping me going! And of course for permission to make a couple of call-backs to her own work - in this case "What cannot be turned" - because for any Harlock, in any timeline, some things are inevitable…_

 _...they can also take their time to come to fruition..._

* * *

 _Titan Base, several weeks later_

Mindful of his brother's singular distaste for authority, Mamoru resigned himself to being the one in the firing line of the Council's ire, and shucked himself reluctantly out of a very comfortable flightsuit and into a business suit. Briefly. After staring at the figure in the full length mirror, his untrimmed hair now down over his collar after weeks - no, months - in space, looking stiff, unhappy and buttoned up to the gills, he yanked off the jacket, swapped the button-through shirt for a lightweight pull-on sweater, the pants for something that spat in the face of a sharp-edged pressing, swapped shoes for his calf length space boots, and grabbed a three-quarter belted dark blue jacket out of his closet. The result was somewhere in between military chic and smart-casual, and he breathed a sigh of relief as he kicked the offending business suit out of sight under the bed in his quarters on the Titan base. The tie he shoved into a drawer, promising he'd burn it later.

There wasn't much he could do about the shadows under his eyes and the slightly bloodshot look in them from far too little sleep over the past few weeks.

The door to his quarters chimed. 'Yes?'

'Just me.' Manfred Rosenbach stepped into the room as the door irised open, looking sharp, pressed and professional in a similar suit to the expensive garbage Mamoru had recently divested himself of. He took in the figure standing before him with a slightly amused look, glanced down at the floor to where one sleeve stuck out from under the bed accusingly, pointing at Mamoru's feet, and raised a well-groomed golden eyebrow. 'Interesting look you're going for there…'

'Don't start on me, Manny. I tried stuffing myself back into that suit and gave up. If anyone on that panels' going to judge me by appearances, I'd rather they come to the right conclusion.'

'Informal but reserved? Smart, but relaxed? Nothing to hide. Not playing the game the approved way, but not totally rejecting the forms of boardroom combat?' Manfred asked with a wry smile. 'You'll be lucky. No-one in the council is that intelligent. That bunch will just see you as a scruffy rebel who won't play by their rules.'

'You think a business suit and a haircut would change that?' Mamoru cast a longing look at the gun belt hung casually over the back of his chair, the butt of his Cosmo Eagle peeking out of the leather, and sighed.

Manfred placed a hand on his shoulder and gave him a gentle push in the direction of the door. 'No, no, no. Absolutely not. If you must accessorise, pick up a folder or something.'

'I can't kill someone with a folder,' Mamoru half-growled.

'Then you're not doing it right, as your not-so saintly younger brother would say. It won't be your first rodeo, and dad's done some of the groundwork whilst we were in transit. To be honest, I don't think it'll be much more than a formality…' he was stopped dead in his tracks by Mamoru's hand on his sleeve.

'Run that past me again.'

'No-one's coming forward to scream about that weapon being destroyed. No-one's mentioned Dis. We've had some tutting over the decision to repatriate the Colonial prisoners on Herise, but even that died down after father pointed out that it was a gesture of magnanimity that might gain the Earth Alliance some much-needed brownie points in the press. In fact, they've even been talking about medals all round, for the survivors.'

Mamoru ran a hand through his hair and pulled a face as his fingers encountered a snarl. 'Justin's good, but he's not that persuasive, Manfred. Just what the hell is going on? Have I been busting my balls for weeks trying to make a case for avoiding a firing squad for nothing?'

'Not entirely,' Manfred replied quietly, dropping his voice as a couple of techs in white strolled past them. 'You'll still be facing an enquiry when we reach Enceladus, but it looks to me as if there's some major ass-covering going on. In the first hearing they pulled all the stuff on the plasma accelerator and the mining operation on Dis, and ruled it inadmissible.'

'So what - we get thrown to the wolves?' Mamoru's comm-link chimed at him. He tapped his ear-piece. 'Okita.'

'Sir?' His secretary's voice was uncharacteristically nervous.

'Mori kun, what is it? I'm due on the shuttle in five minutes…'

'Actually sir, you're not. I've been trying to get hold of you for half an hour…'

Mamoru winced. He'd only switched the damned thing on once he'd left his quarters. Anything to avoid a last minute catastrophe with the company, which seemed to have failed. 'What do you mean, I'm not? The hearing…'

'Cancelled sir. By order of Fleet Admiral Sanada. Haven't you seen the news?'

' _Fleet Admiral_? And no, I haven't. Shiro is supposed to be still recuperating after surgery to replace his limbs - what the hell…?'

Manfred had slipped past him to a public terminal, and had brought up the SSN feed on screen, where a harassed looking young woman - who was usually to be found doing this regular morning slot with cute dogs and book of the month - was midway through a report: '... still coming in, but it seems the Ninth fleet has vanished without a trace. The Fleet was due to exit Imaginary Number space over twelve hours ago to engage with a large group of colonial vessels said to be converging in the vicinity of New Caledonia. The Ninth had been sent in support of the Fifth and Fourteenth fleets which had been taking heavy losses. Observations stations in the area report that both fleets were totally destroyed in a counter-attack of unprecedented force, facing an armada more than three times their combined tonnage. At the present time, no survivors have been reported. Colonial news feeds are claiming this as a victory for the Homecoming movement, and the Solar Federation is currently preparing a response.

'Given the size of the ships and the numbers involved, a conservative estimate of the loss of life is approximately eight hundred thousand men and women of our armed forces. All flags on government and military buildings will be flown at half-mast until further notice.'

'Off.' Mamoru said quietly. Manfred switched off the screen and stood silently, chewing on his bottom lip. 'Yuki - Was there anything else?'

'Yes sir. The hearing is being cancelled, the matter tabled. Fleet Admiral Sanada asked me to tell you to take the time to go home - and - to quote verbatim - "take that pair of troublemakers with you" unquote.'

'Thanks.' Mamoru thumbed off the mike and stared with a troubled frown at Manfred. 'Shit.'

'Well there goes my weekend off…' Manfred quipped weakly. He leaned against the wall and folded his arms. 'Sanada? Just how many top admirals did they lose to push a man still in a wheelchair to the top of the promotions list?'

'Too many,' Mamoru replied wearily. 'That's at least four, plus the Fleet Admiral - Hiroshi Kodai was with the Ninth - it was his personal command before he was promoted, and no-one dared take it off him.' He kicked at the wall. 'Shit. I know his sons. We both do - we were in the Academy with Manabu, remember? And the youngest is still trying to pluck up the nerve to ask my secretary for a date…'

'She'll eat him alive,' Manfred said with heartfelt sympathy, having been on the receiving end of Mori's brusque efficiency. 'That one was in your brother's cohort, wasn't he?'

'Mmm. Susumu. Another lunatic hotshot, but being the Fleet Admiral's son, has _his_ colourful attempts to break ships into little pieces swept under the rug.' He stared at the black screen. 'I don't like where this is going, Manny. You might have done better to get off at Herise.'

'Any particular reason? Beyond travel restrictions, that is?' Manfred fell into place at Mamoru's side as the other man headed towards the main concourse of the base.

'Because we were both Academy graduates.' Mamoru carried on walking as though unaware of the way Manfred stopped dead in his tracks, then had to jog to catch up.

'No fucking way,' Manfred said as he drew level. 'We're both over forty. They'd never…'

'Sanada lost three limbs,' Mamoru pointed out. And to that, Manfred couldn't find a suitable rebuttal. 'Say nothing to the rest of them,' Mamoru advised. 'No need to worry them if I'm wrong. Let everyone enjoy the chance for a few extra days back home.' He paused. 'Manny - if they called, would you fight? For the Alliance?'

Manfred ran a hand through his hair. 'My home's out there, Mamoru. So are my brothers, my family. But I'm still an Earth citizen, with duties…' He lowered his head. 'Oh, fuck, Mamoru. Let's just hope it doesn't come to that.' In an attempt to change the subject he continued: 'How the hell does an entire fleet vanish in IN-SKIP? Another secret super-weapon?'

'Or just a horrible accident,' Mamoru replied, his own expression as troubled as Manfred's. And from Manfred's answering snort, he believed that about as much as Mamoru did.

* * *

 _Earth. Heiligenstadt. One week later._

'Funny. It's usually me that hides out in here.' Harlock perched on the back of the ancient wooden pews in the chapel, placed his feet up on the upholstered seat, and handed his brother a hip flask. 'Good speech. And it's brandy, before you ask. Last of dad's cognac.'

Mamoru took the offered flask, and had taken a generous swallow of the smoothly burning liquid before the design etched onto the side registered. He ran his fingers over the skull and crossbones with a wry smile. 'I detect a growing theme…'

'Why mess with a classic?' Harlock took a large swallow from the flask and recapped it before stuffing it into the inside pocket of the breast of his black jacket, unfastened to reveal a pristine white shirt itself unfastened to reveal far too much chest for decorum. 'Although there are those who might think it's in poor taste at a funeral.'

'Memorial,' Mamoru corrected. 'A funeral implies we had something to bury..' He glanced over at his brother. 'Speaking of poor taste: must you? You do know how buttons work, right?'

'It's _August_ …'

'So?'

'It's over thirty degrees in the shade in the rose garden. Be thankful I'm keeping _anything_ on.' Harlock eyed his brother up, taking in the jacket folded up on the back of the pew, the collar undone on his silvery-grey shirt, and the rolled-up sleeves. 'I appear to be wearing more than you are…'

' _I'm_ not displaying my belly-button lint to the crowd,' Mamoru replied testily.

Harlock gestured expansively, almost hitting Mamoru on the nose. 'What crowd? It's just you and me - and maybe god - in here.'

'You me, and the family ghosts…' Mamoru replied morosely.

'All fifteen hundred years of them, or just our personal ghosts?'

'The personal ones are more than enough. Anything left in that flask?'

'Not for you. You're at your morbidly depressive stage, so I'm cutting you off before Miranda cuts bits of me off. Bits I'd like to stay attached to. I'm far too young and pretty to lose body parts.'

'If you were that vain, you'd book in to get that bloody scar fixed,' Mamoru pointed out. 'I've got news for you - it's not as much of a deterrent as you think it is.'

'I'm not sure anything would be, with those cheekbones.' Miranda entered the chapel, looking hot and flustered despite the lightweight summer dress she wore. Her fair hair was pulled up on top of her head in a ponytail to keep it off her neck, and she held a straw hat in one hand. 'Darling - the marines from Julia's ship want to take their leave. They wanted to speak to you before they left for Mars. Then can you arrange to run Shiro down to the town? I'd love to have him stay, but we're not exactly wheelchair accessible…'

Mamoru smiled at her, jumped down lightly from his perch and snatched up his jacket. He stopped on his way out to plant a kiss on his wife's cheek. 'I obey, my mistress.'

She swatted his ass with her hat. 'You…'

Both of them had to brace for impact as a small, dark haired tornado raced into the room, narrowly avoiding them with a dopplered "sorry uncle!" and charged head first towards Harlock's position. 'Papa!' Harlock reached down to pick Richard up and oofed as he did so, the boy's arm's twining around his neck.

'Damn, you're getting big!'

Richard giggled and snuggled against his father's neck briefly, before calling out: 'He's in here, mama! I found him!'

'Traitor,' Harlock whispered into his son's ear. Richard just giggled again. 'Mama said you'd say that…'

Maya appeared in the doorway, a sleepy Stefan in her arms. 'I should have known…' she exchanged a knowing smile with Miranda. 'Good grief, Harlock - fasten up that shirt before you go outside again, or I'll have to beat the catering staff off with a stick…' She eyed his exposed chest with a salacious smile of her own. 'Especially that young chef from New Zealand, with the tats…'

'Told you,' Mamoru said as his brother rolled his eyes. 'Not even _close_ to being off-putting.'

'You can protect him,' Maya said, a trace of mischief in her voice. 'Since you're the lord of the manor, Harlock, would you _try_ to make an effort to say goodbye to some of the non-military guests? The buffet ran out half an hour ago and the natives are looking longingly at the gate…'

'Papa!' Richard tugged on his father's well beyond regulation hair. 'Katy says I can ride Prince, if you say yes. Can I? Please?'

Harlock settled his eldest son more securely in his arms and beamed at his wife. 'No can do. Seems I need to do the daddy thing…'

'I'll deal with it,' Mamoru interjected, before the promise of fiery retribution in Maya's eyes materialised. 'I need to go that way anyway, and besides - I don't growl at people.'

'See?' Harlock gave Maya a peck on the cheek and dropped a kiss on his youngest son's downy head, as he squirmed sleepily in his mother's arms. 'He's better at this sort of thing. It all works out.' He slipped out with Richard before she could frame an answer.

'Don't,' Mamoru advised wearily. 'You should know by now some battles you're never going to win.'

* * *

 _Ten hours later_...

'Come here.' Mamoru lay back lazily on the bed and held out a hand. Miranda stood up gracefully from the chair in front of her dressing table and put her hairbrush down on the top, placing it neatly next to the matching comb. She'd yet to plait her hair for the night and it fell in a golden waterfall to below her shoulder blades. The low light from the side sconces made it look like burnished gold, and shone through her thin georgette robe. He drank in the sight greedily, and let his gaze wander over her from head to foot and back again.

'Stop that!' Her scolding tone was somewhat ruined by the laugh she couldn't suppress. 'Honestly - aren't you past leering at me at your age?' she added primly. 'Besides, leching at my used, sagging boobs and stretch marks isn't seemly.'

From outside, sounds of groans, sighs and a slightly creaking bed floated in through the open window. 'Oh, god…' Miranda buried her head in her hands. 'They've left the window open again…'

Mamoru sat up and reached out to close their own window, cutting out most of the noisy neighbours' orgasmic soundtrack. 'My brother has no shame,' he said with a grin. 'And still hasn't learned the genteel art of a strategically placed feather pillow…'

Miranda laughed and threw one of the small decorative feather cushions from her chair at him, which he caught with a grin. 'Try to smother _my_ sighs with a pillow and see what it costs you,' she told him.

'I'm trying to remember...were we ever that noisy?' He closed the distance between them and wrapped his arms around her, bending his head to kiss her gently, and using the distraction to start slowly easing the gossamer thin fabric off her shoulders.

'I seem to recall we had our moments,' she said, a little breathlessly as his lips and tongue trailed their way slowly down her throat and then across her collarbone. 'At least until we had to avoid waking small children…'

'Children who are now sleeping several rooms away with nice thick stone walls,' he pointed out slyly. 'And these…' he gently swirled his tongue around one exposed, hard nipple, a darker brownish pink than her breast, 'are not saggy.'

It was an effort to get her breath back as he turned his attention to the right hand breast with his tongue and lips even as his hand closed around the left and stroked slow circles with his fingers. Her robe slipped unnoticed to pool over her bare feet, and she placed her hands on either side of his face softly, before running her fingers through his sandy hair and lowering her own head to place a kiss on top of his. 'Baby chewed and soft,' she huffed into his hair, and felt his grin against her skin as he moved to kiss her stomach.

'I love the changes,' he replied, suiting action to word by tracing the line of what she considered to be her most obvious stretch mark, running almost from hip to hip, grazing her skin slightly with the rough touch of stubble. 'All of the changes in your body. I love the way you look when pregnant. How it felt to feel Aurora, Katie and Ellie move inside you. How you looked nursing them. Watching you is like watching the seasons change.' He stopped just before he reached the soft curls of her sex, and stared up into her face. 'I want to still be doing this when we're eighty, and scandalising the great-grandchildren, and I'm going to adore every line, every silver hair and every wrinkle just as much as I love every inch of you now.'

He was on his knees in front of her, staring up at her so earnestly, she had to bury her face in his hair - breathing in the scent of the sandalwood shampoo he'd used earlier - to hide the emotion she felt. 'I think I just found a grey hair,' she mumbled into his soft curls, and he laughed.

'Isn't this where you're supposed to tell me you adore my muffin top and my bald spot?'

She pulled away slightly and eyed him with a critical gaze. Shirtless, he sported a still impressive breadth across the shoulders, a scattering of wiry hairs trailing down his sternum to his belly button that hadn't been there in his youth, that extended past that point over a flat stomach and still slim waist down below the waistband of lightweight pants that clung to muscular thighs and the rock hard curve of his ass. That they also outlined the fact that his interest in her was definitely not flagging was to her mind pure icing on the cake. 'Well, you don't have a bald spot…' she said eventually.

His hand smacked her bare ass lightly. 'I ought to have that roll,' he said, getting to his feet. He picked her up, soliciting a small squeak. 'Given how much of your cooking I get through.'

'I think you work most of that off,' she replied archly as he laid her down gently on the bed and placed his arms on either side of her, bracing himself so that he could look into her eyes.

'I could,' he said with a smirk, 'if I could resist the urge for the occasional midnight snack…'

Miranda ran her hands over his back, frowning whenever she felt him flinch slightly as her fingers found spots that were still sore from his recent adventures. When her explorations meandered to the soft fabric of his pants she gave the waistband a tug. 'You're not the only one who gets peckish - don't I get to take the wrapper off my snack?' she teased.

He smiled back and with a smoothness born of long practice rolled over and off her, pulling her with him until she was straddling him. Her hair fell over her shoulders, the ends just brushing his chest. 'Only if you promise to use your teeth,' he replied. When she grinned he temporised 'on the _trousers_ , you little fiend…'

* * *

 _Morning. The day after._

Harlock sauntered into the kitchen, hands in his pockets, hair still damp from a shower and sniffed. 'Bacon?' He dropped into a chair and leaned back. Before his boots had left the floor, a kick on the shin prompted him to put them back.

'Put your feet on that table and I will end you,' Mamoru growled at him. 'You weren't born in a barn.'

'Might as well have been,' Harlock shot back. He leaned back so that the chair was balanced on its two back legs as Miranda walked past, a covered platter in hand. 'Just leave that here, Miri darling. I'm starving. That fat killjoy over there can get some porridge…'

She evaded his attempts to grab the cover and slapped the offending fingers. 'Wait your turn, kiddo. And show a little respect. Otherwise the only person getting porridge will be you.'

The kitchen door opened to let in Tochiro, carrying one daughter in his arms, with the eldest almost tripping him up getting underfoot. 'Hey you guys - do I smell pig?' He sniffed. 'Our daily reminder of the difference between commitment and contribution…' He beamed at the brothers.

'You are always _way_ too perky in the morning,' Harlock muttered. 'It's disgusting and unnatural. And I know I'm going to regret asking…'

Mamoru swiped the top off the serving dish and helped himself to a crispy rasher, before starting to heap his plate with sausages, scrambled eggs, tomatoes, mushrooms and crispy hash browns. 'An object lesson, dear brother. A full breakfast requires merely a contribution from the chicken…'

'...but a lifetime commitment from the pig!' Tochiro finished, plonking Shizuku onto a chair and then swinging Mayu up onto one next to her sister. 'Leave some for me, will you?' He eyed the rapidly diminishing platter sadly as the brothers set about transferring its contents to their own plates. Miranda ruffled his hair as she walked past him on her way back to the range.

'Plenty more where that came from. Since when did I ever set a table that didn't cater for you three greedy gannets and your offspring?' She put the last two sausages on Harlock's plate, neatly spearing them from under her husband's fork. 'Phantom, honey, you need feeding up - that t shirt used to be nicely stretched over your abs, and it's hanging on you…'

'Well I rarely get offered that much sausage…' Harlock deadpanned. Tochiro almost spat out the mouthful of mushroom he'd been about to swallow.

'Don't…' Miranda raised her spatula threateningly. 'You two can keep your double entendres for after breakfast, if you please.'

'Someone being smutty?' Aurora leaned over the half-door and grinned at everyone. 'Uncle?'

'You're late, Rory.'

Rory waved airily at her mother. 'S'okay. Caught breakfast down with the guys in the barn. By the way - Uncle? I thought dad asked you to put out the no visitors sign at the foot of the hill?'

Harlock frowned. 'He did, and I did. Why?'

'Just there's a hovercar on its way up.'

Jan leaned over her shoulder and waved. 'Morning. Captain. Okita-san. It's got Fleet decals on the doors and an Alliance flag on the bonnet…'

Aurora pouted. 'Well they're a day late for Grandy's memorial…'

Harlock, Mamoru and Tochiro all shared a worried look. 'Well this won't be good, surely?' Harlock said quietly. Mamoru stood up. 'I'd better go and see what they want.'

Aurora gave her mother a worried look as her father walked past her with only a brief pat on her arm. 'Mum?'

Miranda took off her apron and hung it on the back of a chair. 'I'd better check.' She followed her husband's path, leaving even Tochiro looking at a breakfast he didn't really feel like eating anymore.

* * *

Mamoru didn't run. Not in the early morning that already promised another day with scorching temperatures long before noon. The whitewashed walls of the keep reflected the sun already, and once outside the thick inner walls, the courtyard already baked. He didn't run, not even when the impatient twat on the other side of the massive oak doorway slammed the iron knocker down against the thick wooden doors for the third time.

He opened the smaller door in the large gates, and stared straight into the flushed faces of two lieutenants in full uniform. A weasel faced man in his thirties and a woman built like a small tank. 'Yes?'

'Mamoru Okita?'

'Yes.'

Weasel-face frowned, clearly not liking the monosyllabic answers, though what else he expected was a mystery. 'Mamoru Okita, I am here under the authority of the Admiralty. As per Item 9, section 34 of the Special Services Act 2847, revised August 2874, to inform you your discharge has been revoked and you are hereby reinstated as per item 12 section -'

'I don't need you to quote the regulations to me, Lieutenant,' Mamoru replied in his quietest tone. The one most people quickly learned to back away from. Weasel-face seemed as though he was about to respond, looked again, flinched, and backed down. _Smart move_...

From behind his left shoulder, he heard Miranda's soft cry of pain and denial. 'Let me see the papers.'

The disappointment in the weasel's face was clear, and inwardly he sighed. _Thought I'd make a run for it, did you? Or someone suggested I might do that if you pushed hard enough_? Weasel-face handed the papers over with a sneer. The tank did her best to look disinterested, but Mamoru was sure he recognised _her_ from Sanada's staff; Weasel-face bore the purple collar flashes of IntSec...

'Mamoru?'

'A minute, Miri. Let me look.'

They were perfectly in order, and legally binding. He looked up from them, careful to keep his face impassive. 'Lieutenant…'

'Rike.'

'Rike, _sir_.' Mamoru rapped out. Weasel-face snapped to parade ground straightness. 'Sir.'

'I'm well over the statutory cut-off for compulsory re-enlistment. Did anyone bother to explain this?'

'Sir. The rules change was approved in Council last night. After the loss of four separate fleets, the Navy is desperate.' He didn't say it out loud, but his expression clearly added "they'd have to be…".

'Mamoru?' Miranda sounded so afraid, he wanted to do nothing more than slam the door in their faces and hold her. 'They can't.'

'Frau Okita, they can, and they have. Effective immediately, your husband…'

'Her husband is re-appointed to the Solar System fleet at the rank of Konteradmiral, _lieutenant_.' He held out his hand again. 'Those were my enlistment papers - where are my orders?'

'Sir.' They were handed to him but not without some fumbling inside weasel-face's jacket. 'Sir. We have orders…'

'I'm sure you do. But since I outranked you the moment these were signed, you'll now obey mine. Get in your car, drive back to town, and wait for me there.'

'We're supposed to take you…'

'I have transport, lieutenant. And I can report to the spaceport in Bayreuth under my own recognizance, as is my right. Unless you care to disobey a senior officer?'

For a moment, weasel's hand hovered over the butt of his pistol, and the tank shifted her stance slightly and cleared her throat. Weasel took one look at her, looked back at Mamoru, and let his arm drop to his side.

'Sir. No, sir.'

Mamoru slammed the door in his face even as he saluted. 'Prick,' he muttered. He turned, the papers still held in fingers that had gone strangely numb. 'Miri…'

'They can't. Can they?'

He let the papers drop to the floor and she flung herself into his open arms, sobbing. 'They can't do this. They can't! You're too old! It's been years…'

He buried his face in her hair, still scented with the rose and lemon shampoo she made for sale in the gift shop. 'Oh my love. I'm so sorry,' he whispered. 'But after what happened, it was always possible. I suspect I'm not the only Academy graduate waking up this morning to a nasty surprise.' And he silently blessed Justin's quick thinking in shoving Manfred on the very next transport out of the solar system.

'Can't you talk to Shiro?' She pulled away and glared up into his face. 'Shiro… that bastard! Eating my food and drinking our beer yesterday and not a word…'

'Don't think I won't be having words,' he told her gently. 'But I suspect I have him to thank for mitigating this as much as he could.'

'Mitigating?' She thumped his chest. 'How can this be mitigating? I could lose you...'

He tried to smile reassuringly. 'I'm made of tougher stuff than you think. He made me admiral - technically the highest I should have been appointed at was captain, and even that would have normally been a stretch. But he's given me the local fleet command, in logistics. That's got two benefits - it keeps me in-system and until it all goes horribly wrong and we have several billion people knocking on our doorstep, that means I'm not in a combat critical post.'

'And the other?' Her tears were slowing, and were closer to anger now than sorrow.

'His command will stay in oversight of the Deathshadow Project.'

Both turned to see Harlock lounging in the doorway, his deliberately casual pose not hiding his rigid control. 'They made _you_ a fucking _admiral_?' he added, raising an eyebrow until it almost disappeared under his fringe.

' _Rear_ Admiral,' Mamoru corrected. 'Logistics and Procurement… which makes me your boss,' Mamoru continued, 'so no change there...' He knelt down to pick up the papers he'd dropped. 'Miri, love - would you get the girls?' She looked at him numbly, all the light gone from her eyes, and he grieved for that. But she nodded, and left him in the courtyard with his brother.

'Sanada, again,' Harlock growled once Miranda had left. 'That two-faced bastard sat there…'

'I know. Trust me, I'll have words - even though as of an hour ago he became my commanding officer.'

'Well that stinks, because you were always twice the commander he is.' Harlock paused. 'Actually…'

'Yeah. I wouldn't go there. That's bad taste even for you.'

The brothers stared at each other, the silence thick enough to cut with a sabre. 'You're out of uniform,' Harlock said eventually, with a nod to Mamoru's black t-shirt tucked into faded cargo pants.

'Someone put my new collar flashes in with this,' Mamoru waved the envelope, then tucked it into a pocket. 'Thankfully I do still have a uniform, since I'm occasionally obligated to put it on.'

'About twenty years out of date,' Harlock snorted.

'Somehow, I don't think my fashion sense is why I've been conscripted,' Mamoru replied dryly. Hearing the sounds of several light footsteps running their way he sighed. 'I have to report in at HQ in Bayreuth by noon. I need to…'

'I know.' Harlock stepped back into the shadows of the doorway. 'I'll run you into town, when you've said your goodbyes.' He had to swallow hard to get past the lump in his throat. 'Aniki…'

' _Es ist ein Spiel und wir haben keine Wahl, nicht zu spielen_ ,' Mamoru said softly as he turned away, schooling his face into a smile as he greeted the tears and sobs of his daughters, as all three tumbled across the courtyard to throw themselves at him.

In the shadows Harlock watched, unable to turn away, despite knowing he should let them have their privacy. Apart from Aurora the girls didn't really have the maturity to fully understand - yet. Rory had her arms around her mother, and both were trying desperately not to sob. Mamoru drew them both in close, and the five stood there for a very long time, saying nothing.

Harlock felt Maya ghost up behind him, and lay her head against his back. 'I just heard,' she whispered. 'How…?'

'Damage control, I suspect,' he muttered grimly. 'I might hate Sanada for not letting it slip yesterday, but he's done his best to keep Mamoru out of harm's way - and still in charge of the project.'

She tugged him further into the corridor, out of sight and earshot of the scene in the courtyard. 'What do you mean?'

'My brother isn't the only one who had a nasty shock this morning. Con Jones just called from Titan. Tochiro's still swearing a blue streak. They pulled the Dark Matter research and development right out from under us. The Deathshadow Project just became a full military operation, under the aegis of the Quartermaster's division…' He smiled grimly. 'The fleet division Sanada finagled Mamoru into command of at the last minute.'

Maya peeked around the lanky form of her husband. 'Does he know?'

'Well, it's a long flight from Bayreuth to Titan,' Harlock replied dryly. 'Seems we'll have a lot to talk about.' He gave her a kiss on the cheek. 'Fetch the boys,' he added gently. 'They'll want to say goodbye to their uncle.'

'Not goodbye,' she told him firmly. 'Auf wiedersehen.'

He wanted to agree with her, but the words stuck in his throat.

Harlock moved back to stand in the doorway after she'd left, surreptitiously watching the tight-knit little family. The weather, he thought, looking up at the cloudless blue sky, had no sense of occasion. It should be pouring down with rain, thundering and splitting the sky with lightning, surely? Not on the day when the home and family he'd thought he could protect from what was out there took such a painful wound.

Maya came back, with Stefan and Richard, and followed by Tochiro, Annelise and their two daughters. They dragged him into their midst, all tearful and clinging, and it was all he could do not to shiver as a shadow passed overhead.

An eagle, soaring on the early currents above the hill the castle stood on, but he still felt cold as he stood in the midst of his family, for what he had the awful feeling would be the last time.

'Harlock?'

He turned at his brother's kindly tone. 'Nothing. Just lost in thought.' He slapped Mamoru on the back. 'Let's get you into uniform, _Admiral_. Your ship awaits…'

'I rather thought I'd request the _Deathshadow_ ,' Mamoru mused as they walked side by side to his quarters.

'I rather thought you would,' Harlock drawled.

Above them the eagle circled again above the castle as they walked, and both men stared up to watch it soar as it screamed out its call to the empty blue sky.

 _Ende_

* * *

 _The saga continues in "Firestorm" - which will detail the last few weeks of the Homecoming War - and the terrible events that followed the ceasefire…_

* * *

 _ **Coda: Titan Base, Orbital scaffold**_

 _And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,_

 _Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born…_

 _WB Yeats, The Second Coming_

* * *

' _The ID's as good as it gets.' Con handed the cards over to Elizabeth with a grin. 'Don't ask me how I got them…'_

 _She smiled at him. 'I'm not sure I want to know, but thank you.' She narrowed her eyes. 'There wouldn't be a way for you to - oh - I don't know - keep track of me, would there?'_

 _He beaned innocently. 'Now why would I do that, Captain?'_

' _Hmmm.'_

' _Because we'll be working side by side for the foreseeable future, "Captain Stiller".'_

' _Are you sure that'll hold?' Harlock asked him. 'Because the Fleet…'_

' _Relax. Van Stiller's lost with her ship, at Tiamat. She's a close match and it didn't take much to change the records with Lizzy's. No family, and no-one from her past is likely to come forward - we just lost over a decade of our best and brightest. And if they do - well, the records say she's had extensive reconstructive surgery after we rescued her on Dis… by the time our people certify her ready for action, I doubt anyone will be looking.'_

 _Harlock gave Elizabeth a searching look, but she met those wine-dark eyes without flinching. 'It's a hard call, burning your bridges and joining the enemy…'_

' _Not the enemy, Harlock. Your project. There's a difference. I want Doppler's head on a plate, and Harken's balls stuffed in his mouth as an entree. I may be putting on an Alliance uniform to do it, but it's your flag I'll be fighting under, not theirs.'_

 _She looked past him, out of the viewscreen, to where the unfinished hulls of the four Deathshadow vessels squatted, chained still to their cradles, and shivered. 'I've no idea why they want Earth so badly, but I'll be damned if I'll be a part of helping them to get it. I just hope you know what you're doing. There's something damned… inhuman… about those ships…'_

' _Of course there is.' A fluting voice behind Harlock said. 'How could it be otherwise?' A tall, slender figure in a diaphanous tunic over a pale blue flightsuit stepped into view. Large round cat-like eyes dominated a thin, pointed face with a tiny mouth. Pale hair floated down her back like silk, rippling in the airflow from the air conditioning._

' _Mimay.' Harlock's welcoming smile was warmer than the expressions he greeted most people with._

' _Oh boy…' Elizabeth breathed, unable to tear her eyes away from the nibelung._

' _Welcome to the madhouse,' Con whispered into her ear. He just grinned stupidly when she elbowed him in the gut for licking her earlobe._


End file.
